The Official Fairy Tail Otaku Club (Rewrite)
by HannahPlusAnime
Summary: Lucy Heartfilia, for the third time in a row, entered Magnolia Academy, a school for the “elites,” where she covers her quirky personality she never knew she had with a cold exterior. After stumbling upon a certain club for geeks like her and refuses to know anything about, Natsu, the club president blackmails her into joining to get her to come out of her shell.
1. Chapter One: The Room of C-3

**This is a rewritten version of the original. Though the story is a slight bit different from the original, this has better writing and things make more sense. Choose as you please.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail nor stories this fanfiction references, which belong to their respective owners.**

"Lucy!" Jude called from downstairs. "Get your things! You leave in fifteen minutes."

I sighed as I grabbed my backpack. I didn't want to go to the Academy. It was like high school all over again but with fancier rooms and people who actually know a thing or two.

I hurried down the stairs while pulling up a downloaded version of my favorite manga, _Fairy Tail_ , a rather mainstream, but gorgeous manga with characters you hold close to your heart, epic battle scenes, and some of the most entertaining arcs I've ever read or watched. I was a _little_ obsessed. But, then again, why shouldn't I be? It was my first-ever franchise I got into.

"Reading that meaningless crap again, are you Lucy?" Asked Jude, my father, writing on some pieces of paper on the dinner table.

I squirmed uncomfortably in my new blazer while Jude kept talking. A blazer was an "absolute" for the dress code.

"What was it called again?" He continued. "'Fairy Stories?'"

I scoffed. "Why do you think it's crap?" I asked as I grabbed a piece of bread from the kitchen pantry.

"I've read a chapter. It's absolutely nothing in my eyes. You should read something a bit more sophisticated."

"I've read everything from the center shelf, if you haven't noticed, sir. I've read a lot more than just sophisticated."

He ignored me. "And something with less... how do I say? Nudity?" He asked, scratching his cheek.

 _Fanservice,_ I thought with a smirk, but answered formally, "I don't mind that, sir."

I scarfed down the piece of bread while reading the rest of the chapter with a smile on my face.

"I told you not to read that!" Jude commanded, raising his voice.

"How did you know I was reading _Fairy Tail_ in the first place?" I said in the same tone. "And continuing to read it now?"

Jude glared in my eye with a stern look. "You have a certain expression when you read it. I also get a feeling if you're doing something I don't like."

I sighed and turned off my phone. "Yeah, fine. Remember that your medicine is in the cabinet and you have an appointment on Friday for your 'sickness.'"

Jude grumbled. "Virgo has the car ready."

Virgo, my favorite of the many servants, was a maid that I personally requested to drive me to the Academy every morning. She was my favorite because she reminded me of a certain, very odd character in _Fairy Tail_. Despite how much I love the franchise, I know I'm not just comparing, but she is exactly like her. She even looks like her; short, bright magenta hair and a petite stature. Her personality, emotionless and aloof, but caring when it really mattered, was the same as- did I mention? The character with the _exact same name_ , Virgo, the Celestial Spirit whose key belonged to Akiko, the main heroine of the show.

I headed out the door with this strange but lovable maid who opened the door of the car with her face blank.

We headed out. I watched the mansion, definitely to big to house two people, even with a staff with their own homes, disappear behind a mass of other large houses.

We finally arrived that the dreaded place where Virgo gave me her usual goodbye, "Farewell, Princess," which was a nickname she gave to me after me rejecting several formal uses of both my first and last name.

The dreaded place that stood before me was the one and only Magnolia Academy, a rather prestigious school for, prodigies children of celebrities, or rich douchebags. I belonged to category number three: rich douchebags. I acted different here than home alone. I definitely wasn't the kindest person in the world at my home, but here I was entirely a different person. Cold and realistic, but strangely attractive to a large amount of people who wanted to be friends with me, people like the girl name Milianna, for example, who clung to my back in a big hug.

"Heartfilia-san!" She chimed, hurting my ears with her shrill voice. "I'm _sooo~~_ happy to see you! Me and the gals are having a study session in classroom C-2. We _really_ need you to be there, if that's okay with you."

I sighed while walking up the clean-cut stairs. I stared at the clean, pristine school with a heavy heart. Younger students, high schoolers, let's call them, were skipping along into the school happily in their sailor-like uniforms, chatting along like there was nothing wrong with the literal definition of "separation of class." I was bored of it, along with the fact that I was bored of going to the same school, year after year, in the never-ending cycle since I was 14.

"Yeah, sure," I said, almost whispered, to the eccentric girl who was now skipping along with a simple wave.

All she would ever ask me to was study sessions. Her and the "gals" would talk behind my back, I heard, passing the students in the flawless halls, though I didn't care. They don't know *me* and they don't know how much of what I am isn't what it seems to be, so there's no reason to complain if they don't like a whole different person; someone who hasn't read countless light novel and manga series, someone who hasn't watched over 90 series of anime, someone who hasn't cared enough to count them; someone who wasn't me.

 **l l l**

Traveling to the classroom all the way on the second floor across the school was a hassle in itself, but I knew that what lay ahead was an even bigger problem. Five girls- I didn't even bother to remember their names-, annoying, loud, and rude were now sitting around a small table in the middle of the tiny robotics room, talking about makeup and boyfriends, things that "normal" girls talk about, things I didn't care about. I was only there for them to copy my notes.

I sighed. Of course they'd ask the highest ranked female student in the Academy (not to brag) and exclude her because of her boring, covered personality. That's what all students were like these days.

In the midst of my depressing conversation with myself, I zoned out and instead of turning left to the classroom of C-2, I turned right and opened the door of C-3: Law and Order, to a decent amount of students, gathered around rectangular tables with benches. There were probably fifteen, maybe twenty, with younger students and collage-level students, but what caught my eye was not the students, but the gym and self-defense teachers, a couple, holding a preschooler in their laps, laughing along with the students.

"Mr. and Mrs. Connell?" I exclaimed, unintentionally.

A green-haired woman of 27 years of age, looked up at me and smiled. "Oh, Heartfilia-san?" She asked in her country-like dialect. "What'cha doin' here?"

I poked my head outside to see the sign of the classroom, which read,

"C-3: Law and Order"

And written below it:

"Anime Club: Mon-Sat 17:00-18:30"

Sweat beaded on my brow. "Um... I guess- I guess I got the wrong classroom.. If you excu-"

Someone bumped into me from behind, making me start to fall over, but he caught my forearm and held it close to him, stopping my fall.

"I'm sorry about that, my princess, but I didn't see you due to the blinding light of your beauty you give off," the man said in a flirtatious manner.

"Umm.." I murmured to the man of... maybe 20? He had orange hair, intentionally messy, with a black suit and lightly tinted sunglasses to give off a playboy look.

"I'm sorry for setting off such a bright light that it shown through your sunglasses.. that you're wearing inside..." I trailed off in an awkward way.

The man, still holding my forearm, tilted his head to look at my wrist, which wrapped around it was a bracelet that had a charm of the symbol of _Fairy Tail_. I totally forgot I put it on this morning, thinking that my blazer would cover it.

"So you've come to join the club?" He asked, still holding my forearm.

I yanked my arm away, making him wobble, but he quickly recovered, pushing up his sunglasses and flipping his hair.

"I apologize for holding you for too long, young lady," he said. "I hate being rude to beautiful ladies. My name is Loke. I'm a member of this club."

 _Never knew a playboy could be part of an anime club,_ I thought.

"So we have a new member joining? Or perhaps a visitor?" Asked a nearby older student about of 19 years of age. She was tall and had flowing red hair tat reached down to her waist. She pushed up her frameless glasses and smiled. "We are always happy to accept potential members."

I stared at the girl. "I'm sorry, but I'm offended that you would expect me to join such a ridiculous club with no proof that I might be visiting."

"You have a bracelet with the _Fairy Tail_ symbol on it. It's pretty uncommon to have a young girl to have that symbol without having read or watched part of the series," said Loke.

"She didn't see it," I argued, gesturing to the woman. "She could of asked me why I was here and could have helped me."

"It must be pretty disappointing to find that not most people think differently and might have not figured that idea," said a girl my age, 17, with her blue hair wrapped in a bandana, sitting in the benches below.

A boy with pink hair that stood at the stage of the large room ran up to the commotion in a nick of time. "May I help you, miss?" He asked with a grin.

I scoffed. "You can help me by answering why you would open such an embarrassment to the school and to the students that go here. An anime club? Don't make me laugh. I do enjoy my bit of shows, but this is just overboard."

 _Stop, Lucy_ said a voice in my head, the one who always argued with my dominant, bitchy side that never seemed to leave me alone. _I'm sure they have their reasons to have a club like this. Since there's so many members, I'm sure it might be fun-_

"I don't get why you can't just enjoy the shows in private like normal people, not irritating those who _don't_ enjoy the things you do. Honestly, you'll just get criticized in the end, causing damage to friendships and disbandment to the club itself."

The boy frowned. "I never thought about that.. but if the person has the common sense to be kind and not criticize the club, we get to hang out and talk about the thing we all have in common."

I bent my eyebrow, realizing what I just said. "People aren't that merciful. You should know this, if you'd payed enough attention to the world around you instead of being sucked up in something so.. trivial... such as a type of entertainment." I looked around. "Well, I'm sorry to reign on your nerd parade, but I have to get to another classroom where me and my friends actually do something useful to society, instead of just slacking off." I whipped my hair and turned. "Farewell."

The voice in my head exhaled as I closed the doors. _Nice going, Lucy. You just insulted your own people._

 **~ Natsu's POV ~**

"Farewell," said the strange girl, walking out of the room. There was something off about her, and not the fact that she came in the room just to judge the club with unpleasant comments, but something like that.

"Who the hell was that?" Asked my friend... or enemy. Rival- if you will. The black-haired dweeb with a stripping habit named Gray.

Mr. and Mrs. Connell, our club supervisors frowned at the same time. "That there was Lucy Heartfilia," said Mrs. Connell. "She's the top of her class, from what I know. She's always skippin' club requests and considered a 'cold person.' The fact're that she's smart makes her pop'lar."

I raised my eyebrow. "There's something wrong with her."

Cake Icing (Gray) shot his head towards me, eyes wide and shocked. "Oh no..." he turned his head back and shouted, "Lisanna! Natsu's doing it again!"

Lisanna, the girl who knew everything about me, playfully skipped towards us, but kept her face serious. "Natsu, how many times do I have to tell you? You do not say those words, or you'll get hooked." She hit me on my pink-haired head to show punishment.

I rubbed my head and frowned once more. "No, she actually wants to join."

Ezra, the second in command, interrupted Gray who was whining. "How?" She asked.

"Oh... Erza's in," said Lisanna.

"Answer the question, Natsu," said Loke, the "cool" member of the group who hit on almost all the girls who wanted to join the club. "I would like to know this Lucy-tan as well."

"I'm surprised you remember her name for longer than a minute," sarcastically remarked Levy, a petite teenage girl in the engineering department with blue hair tied in her signature bandana.

"It would be rude of me to forget such a lovely maiden's name in such a short time as a day," Loke said. "It breaks one of my rules, as well."

"You said she had a _Fairy Tail_ bracelet on, right? She's a..." I paused for dramatic effect- "Closet otaku."

Levy and Lisanna joined the charade by expressing an even more dramatic gasp.

"So?" Said Gray. "They're not that rare. Hell, you can find an entire group of them in a large room in a specific building." He gestured around the room. "She probably just doesn't want to join the club for a different reason than you t—"

"Gray," I interrupted. "Your clothes."

Gray jumped up and looked about him, and realizing I just said that to make him stop talking, and he, in fact, had clothes on, he left his seat to clutch me by the polo and glare in my face.

"You damn slanty-eyes," he grumbled.

"Sick pervert," I shot back, raising my fist.

Lisanna squeezed in between us and pushed us apart, "As much as my big sister would like to watch you do.. whatever she thought you were doing," she said, gesturing to the older student, Mirajane, who was currently staring at us with sparkly stars surrounding her nose-bleeding-self.

"The blood they will spill will not compare to the amount that she's producing," said Levy, helping Mira tip her face forward into a wad of tissues.

"So... Lucy?" Said Erza in a stern tone.

Cana, the member who was slacking off and drinking- let's just say- what was not allowed on school grounds, broke in the conversation. "Are we talking about the hot blondie who walked in _just_ to bring us down? I agree with Natsu on this one. There's a sto~ory behind this!" She murmured, "all for drama..."

Levy snuck behind her to take the whiskey bottle away from her.

"We need to get her to join the club!" I announced, putting my fists on my hips.

"How do you suppose we do that?" Asked Erza, pushing up her fake, frameless glasses (for show).

"We could try blackmail," said Cana. "Let me remind you that last time we used blackmail, we got Gray to join."

"I'll have you know, that was the worst day of my life so far," said Gray.

I grinned. "But it worked." I turned to the quietest girl in the room, Juvia, who was staring intently at the blob of useless matter that was Gray.

"Juvia, can you help us?"

She turned to get her deep blue eyes to meet mine. "To add another love rival to Juvia's love triangle?" She whipped her head away and dramatically exclaimed, "Oh how the walls of love are so thick and unbreakable! Shall my dear Gray-sama and Juvia ever be together?"

Gray, who was "innocently" huddled on a bench in the corner, perked up his stupid head and and shouted, "Don't drag me into this!"

Juvia turned back to me. "Gray-sama agrees! Juvia shall make Lucy-san suffer and join the club she ever-so hates, but Juvia will not let her get in between Gray-sama and Juvia!"

She cheerfully bounced her wavy blue hair in excitement and smiled. She got like this whenever she manipulated someone into doing her bidding. She turned to me. "Juvia has a plan."

 **~ Lucy's POV : The Next Day : Mid-day Class ~**

Idly scrolling through my phone, I finally heard the words of freedom.

"That's all for today, class," said Professor Gildarts.

The class bowed, but before we could gather our items, a certain boy with pink hair entered the classroom in a disruptive manner.

"GILDARTS," he yelled, smashing into the teacher, hardly budging the tall, bulky man that was Professor Gildarts.

I immediately recognized him as the boy that ran up to me while I was arguing with the club members. I slapped my hands to the desk and was _about_ to shout out, "IT'S YOU!" but I refrained.

The boy turned to me and grinned. "I hate to interrupt whatever boring lecture you had going on, but I have an announcement for little ol' Luigi, here, and I could tell the _entire class_ , but I need your special permission, first."

He raised his right hand were his orange flip phone lay. He pressed a button without effort, and immediately I felt my phone vibrating in my skirt pocket. I took it out to read:

" _Dear Miss Luigi, I could tell the entire class that you are not who they think you are, a.k.a, a CLOSET OTAKU. hehehehehehe. If you come with me, your secret will be safe with me and my friends, and if you decide to come with no resistance whatsoever, I could even get you a present. Play it off as some sort of club emergency to the rest of the students, or whatever._ "

-Natsu Dragneel

I glared and texted back, " _How did you get my number?_ "

"What was that, Miss Heartfilia? A typo? Should I tell the entire class or not?"

"There is no need, _Dragneel_ -kun, because club activities are nothing to get worked up about in front of students," I said in complete monotone. I wasn't exactly known for my acting ability.

"Is that your choice?" He yelled.

"Natsu, if you're gonna yell, at least yell outside where students aren't trying to pound their brains out learning," said Professor Gildarts.

Natsu- apparently- grumbled. "I don't like you when you're at school." He perked up, and turned to me. "Let's go, Luigi!"

 **l l l**

"How many times do I have to tell you, it's not Luigi, but Lucy, and in any way you're not to call me by my first name?" I told Natsu, after he dragged me out of another classroom for the second time.

"You have waaaaay too many classes," he said, ignoring me.

"The problem is that you have not enough classes."

He scoffed, and stopped in front of the familiar- though dreaded- room of C-3.

"It just started, so why did you intend to bring me earlier?" I asked him, glancing at my phone to double check, and as I predicted, it was 17:10.

"About that..." he hung his head and opened the double doors to an exhausted group of students, sitting all around chaotically-placed benches and chairs with sad party hats only half on their heads. The only one who was standing was a younger student, a first year, who was standing in front of the door with a serious look on her face, which did not match her expected demeanor, though the look of long, blue pigtails and innocent brown eyes and petite stature. As we entered, she pulled a party-popper, and even though it made her wince, she announced, "Welcome to OFTOC!"

I stared at the short girl, not noticing the other club members of about 15 standing up to repeat the welcome. She bowed in a formal manner.

"Hello! My name is Wendy Marvell, but you can call me Wendy, like how you can call anybody in the club anything you'd like!" She looked up and smiled, but stopped as quickly as she had started, changing her smile to a shocked expression. "Oh! But... you don't need to call me Wendy, you can really call me anything like the club says- I said that already, right?"

Natsu, behind me, clasped his arm around my shoulders, making me trip slightly. "Yup! You'll understand once we explain the rules of this joint, but for reference, I call Gray here 'Ice Face,' 'Slanty Eyes,' 'Snow Boxers,' whatever I want, basically, because we're all family here at OFTOC!"

I ducked under his grasp, clutching my bag in front of me. "Family? Why am I here, and why are you welcoming me to what sounds like... an ancient Russian civilization? 'Off-talk?' What is that?"

Natsu ran up to the lecture area, passing a circle of practical fold-up chairs, and shouted, "Ready everyone?!"

All of the club members, plus the- what I could only guess were the supervisors- Mr. and Mrs. Connell, inhaled and shouted, "The Official Fairy Tail Otaku Club!"

I stared as the silence slowly fell over the room like a picnic basket slowly falling on a field. I guessed they were all waiting for me to say something, so I said the first thing that came to my head,

"Did you all rehearse this?..."

 **l l l**

"Na~atsu! You're late!" Cried a girl my age with short white-ish, pink-ish hair clinging to Natsu's arm.

The boy sat down on a selected chair in the circle, making the girl sit next to him. I looked around and saw the all other members sat down and waited for someone to start what they came for.

"Sorry for dragging you out early for nothing, Lisanna," Natsu looked up and around. "Everyone, I know I asked you to come out of classes early, but I guess Mr. Connell got Luigi's class schedule wrong, because she had extra classes."

I perked up from the bored slouch I had on the cold, hard metal chair and exclaimed, "You gathered information on me? Is that how you got my number?"

"Yup," said an older student with brown hair, carrying what I hoped was soda. "That's what supervisors are for! Helping out with blackmail."

"Blackmail?" I asked. "Wait..." I realized I was participating in the club instead of attempting to escape to a safe place. I got up, but a girl my age grabbed my arm. I recognized her from yesterday, the one who gave me a remark that was similar to what I would say.

"Can you just sit down and hear us out?" She said.

"If you haven't yet noticed, Lovely," said Loke, on the other side of me. "We have information on you we can use against you."

I whipped my head to Natsu, who was innocently sitting on the fold-up chair with his arms behind his head.

"You're gonna leak that information?" I yanked my arm from the girl's grasp. "When did I ever give you a chance for blackmail? A hint, if you allow me to say? that I would want to be in the club?"

"How many questions does this person ask?" Asked the person drinking what I now knew was not soda.

"You mentioned it yourself," said Natsu, matter-of-factly, ignoring the woman.

"And your bracelet," joined in Loke, gesturing to his forearm for emphasis.

"And what is the reason for blackmailing me?" I asked, starting to get annoyed.

Natsu removed his arms from the back of his head to put his head on his enlaced hands, attached to his sinisterly-placed arms on his knees.

"To get you to join the club," he simply said.

I, still staring, whipped my head to the side. "Why would you want me to? This whole thing's ridiculous."

"This one's a toughie," remarked the drinker.

"Because you don't have any friends," bluntly stated the red-head from earlier, whom I guessed was the leader. "The club is to bring shut-ins together socially by bonding them through what most of them love. And that is..." she gestured to me, smiling, wanting me to guess.

"...Anime?" I guessed.

A woman with the same hair color as "Lisanna," next to the red-head made the "ding-ding-ding" noise.

"What if the person doesn't want to join?" I asked.

Natsu evilly smiled. "We blackmail them."

Lisanna pushed Natsu's head. "Don't scare the poor girl." She then sighed. "Natsu's our judge of what to do with people who stumble upon our club," she explained. "He can just... tell."

"You don't have any friends," added Natsu. "A human is incapable of living a happy, normal life without the support of other humans. It's in our blood. Other people who stumble across us seem just fine."

"So that's why this is called the 'otaku' club?" I asked, knowing that 'otaku' meant an introverted, obsessive fan with a different way of thinking.

Natsu nodded. "Lots of schools do it, so I took the liberty of starting one. The 'official' is just for the acronym. FTOC (Fuh-talk) is just lame."

"Why is it ' _Fairy Tail_?'"

"Stop asking questions!" Whined the drinker, waving her bottle in the air.

"That's enough, Cana," said the co-leader. "Lucy's confused and needs information." She turned to me. "It's our main fandom. It's what Natsu, Lisanna, Gray, and I all had in common when we first started the club."

"Don't forget me," murmured the woman next to her.

"Gray took a little persuading," broke in Lisanna, while jerking her head to the man I knew mostly as "Ice Boxers," a tall, young man with black hair, who never seemed to wear clothes. The "Ice" part in his nickname didn't make much sense, but I definitely knew what "Boxers" meant.

"Anime clubs around here," said the woman who was left out. "Usually have very popular franchises for their main fandom, so that all the members have something in common. It has to be popular, accessible to even the cheapest viewer, and has enough characters and subjects to..." she looked around. "Argue about..."

A mysterious silence fell over the room, and I guessed immediately that the arguing wasn't a rare occurrence, nor something that was treated insignificantly.

Suddenly, Lisanna stood up, pushing her chair behind her in a dramatic way, and pointed directly at the blue-headed girl next to me. "LEVY, LUCANA IS REAL," she shouted at the small girl.

"Levy," apparently, stood up as quickly as Lisanna did, and pointed in a similar manner after her chair finished sliding back. "Childhood friends are _so_ done, so there is no way that Mashima-sensei would have maDE THEM CANON," she said, gradually raising her voice.

I was immediately uncomfortable, but knowing that this was going to be entertaining, I sat back and stayed silent.

Loke joined in and stepped in between the girls pointing at each other. "As much as I would enjoy to see a cat fight, we all know that the manga remains unfinished, and we can set our differences aside until Mashima-sensei completes it and dubs the LuKiko the winner, or LucAna."

"We need lives," murmured Cana, taking a swig of her beverage.

"Silence, you AkiLeo shipper," Lisanna angrily commanded Loke, ignoring Cana.

"This is the most intense debate about pairing I have experienced since my middle school days," said a graduate with her golden hair in a bun.

"Everybody knows that LuKiko takes the variety of the fandom," said Levy.

I knew what they were arguing about, of course, since I had _way_ too much experience arguing on social media of what ship was the best. Trivial, yes; geeky, yes; but fun was the most of it.

"Pavana and Lucas grew up together!" Lisanna yelled.

"This is going to go on for years if we don't break them up," said the woman with white hair, to the red-head, who glanced at Natsu, signaling him to get up and push the women apart.

"Go back to your seats," he said. "You're scaring the newcomer."

"I'm good," I said. Nothing else exciting ever happened in my life, anyway.

Lisanna sat down with Natsu and clung to his arm once more. "I pair Pavana and Lucas because they resemble us, Natsu and I. We're to be married, you know."

I glanced at the now-embarrassed teenager, whose face was now matching his salmon-colored hair.

"Lis! I told you I never agreed to that, plus we were, like, eight when we made that 'promise.'"

Lisanna glared, retracted her arms to fold them, and looked away from Natsu.

"You have no romanticism," she said.

Next, we did names, and I remembered most of the members, at least, first initials. The red-head co-leader was Erza, the woman, who was apparently Lisanna's sister, was Mirajane, and her brother, a big, bulky man who stood out on the tiny chairs was Elfman. The woman with golden hair in a bun was Evergreen, and a man who wore a mask went by the name... Bixlawn?

"A~nd this is Juvia, Gajeel, and Freed," said Natsu, pointing out various members. "You can expect a certain member to never attend meetings, and that is the insignificant-" he pointed to Mirajane to complete the sentance.

"-Laxus-kun," she finished, blushing. "My bo~oyfriend," she added, rolling her tongue.

"He joined just because she made him," explained Natsu.

"You already know Levy and Loke, I hope," said Erza. "And have heard the names of Cana, Wendy, and Gray."

"Fifteen members, I'm guessing?" I asked.

Natsu, twisting his face, counting, said, "Roughly, but you joined! Sixteen-"

"I never said I have joined," I said, getting up. "This seems fun, but a total waste of time. If you excuse me, I'm leaving."

I got up, but as one would expect, I hesitated. Instead of the bitchy side that never seemed to leave the lead of my brain, the softer, sentimental side of me decided to make me stop in my tracks in the middle of the room, an equal distance between the group and the door.

I inhaled, preparing to say something emotional, what I was really feeling, but what came out was, "You still have blackmail on me, right?"

END


	2. Chapter Two: The Goddamn Zoo

**~ Lucy's POV ~**

I sat and stared around at the still, silent group, seemingly waiting for me to speak, but since my introvert-level stamina for amount of words spoken has now expired, I refused to say a word unless asked a question.

The first one to speak was the obnoxious voice of the boy who got me into this mess, Natsu Dragneel, an older student, but still a bright, beaming teenager, with pink hair. He kept a straight face as he spoke: "I just stared FMA..."

Mira immediately replied, squealing, "OMG, I am so glad you brought up newly-starting anime, because I have just started _Toradora!_ which is _so_ much fun, and I am getting so many ships out of it! I just don't know which one is my favorite! Taiga and Minori? Ryuji and Kitamura? Or Minori with Kitamura??—"

"Glad to know, Mira..." Her sister interjected. "I am I also watching _Fullmetal Alchemist_ along with Natsu at _his house_ ," she giggled, "and we are having so much fun! I've seen Brotherhood, and I have to say..-" she trailed off into a rant I instinctually blocked out.

I only had come back when Erza said, "Lucy, what is your favorite series?"

I whipped my head to her, and said bluntly, _"Fairy Tail_."

Erza shook her head while saying, "Not _Fairy Tail_ but another series."

I stared into the distance while mulling it over. I've never really decided it, even though I've seen... probably a hundred series. _Fairy Tail_ seemed to stand out against all the others, though I still had a great love for many. I played it off "cool", and replied, "I prefer not to reveal that information to people I've only just met."

Natsu squinted and leaned forward, though it was useless, since the circle was large. "Have you only seen one series and hiding that fact?"

I rolled my eyes. "If that thought makes you feel better, than yes."

He sat back. "Fine."

The other club members had the most boring conversation about which was the best _KEY_ anime, whilst I scrolled away on my phone checking over... literally nothing, honestly; just photos and current events.

Levy leaned over at my library and commented on my phone case, but I turned my head to look at her, and despite my liking to her comment: "The sunset looks like it was painted by a master artist," because that is what I thought when I first bought it, I glared and said, "I don't care about your taste."

For the rest of club we watch an episode of... you guessed it, _Fairy Tail_. I assumed that they went through the show each episode every day.

I got up to leave when Erza stopped me just when I was at the double doors.

"Oh God, there's more, isn't there?" I said out loud, unintentionally.

Erza narrowed her eyebrows, but said, "I am afraid not, but you have more to do outside the club. Visit Natsu's place and help him plan the next club trip with a couple of kids from the children's center so that you can contribute to the club and get along better with the leader."

She handed me a couple of pieces of paper containing her and Natsu's home address, number, and club information, including a chat number for _Talkster_ , -a messenger app-, options for trips, and amount of funds.

I skimmed them over. "Prepared, now, are we?" I remarked.

Erza smiled. "I'm glad you think so. I hope you enjoy your membership here at the club, and get along with the members."

"Right.." I murmured, and turned on heel to exit.

 **~ Natsu's POV : Dragneel Residence ~**

I stumbled to the giant home that belonged to my eccentric brother, viewing the dark paint and creepy pictures like I always did; with a small grimace, but one thing was different, and I knew exactly what.

I walked into the home, and hearing the noises, I immediately stopped mid-stride, while taking off my shoes. What I heard was the "Zerism" meeting going on, which was nothing good. Every month, a strange cult called the "Banana Brothers," (you'll see what that means in a moment) would all gather into my brother Zeref's house, and perform some kind of ritual, which consisted of the twenty Banana Brothers walking slowly around a lantern above a small basket of bananas, and afterwords, burn them, representing that they let go of everything good in the world (bananas), to focus on their obsession with my brother... for some reason...

I _think_ Zeref was a god of death at one point— and death was a good thing for the most part? Like, it's nice getting out of Earth for a new place, but these guys treat their lives as something like a curse.

Suddenly realizing this, I ran over without thinking into the darkly-lit kitchen connecting to the living room where the men all sat around couches, the ground, and one creepy dude with a ponytail, a cushiony spin-ny chair. Zeref, who was glazing ham, his favorite meat, greeted me, saying, "Welcome, brother! Did you come to join us?"

"Are you doing sacrifices?" I asked.

Zeref looked offended. "Goodness, no! Our lives are given to us for a reason, so we must endure the suffering no matter how horrible, and wait for the celebration of death at a specific time."

Zeref was the type to talk softly, sweetly, but it's totally manipulating to the average human mind. I knew him well enough to believe that he is just trying to lure the weak in to thinking he is the innocent person he acts as, but after you do something wrong, he flips and acts like the person he really is. The young man of around 20 (thought believed by the Banana Brothers to be over 500 years old) tilted his head and smiled. "You can sit down, if you'd like, my dear brother. I'm sure we have space somewhere."

I shook my head hastily. The last time I attended one of his weird rituals, one of his members explained in gruesome detail of one of his one-night-stands turning into a thing you hear in horror stories in a slightly-realistic setting. How they always recap their one-night-stands they constantly have since, because they forbid relationships, was bad enough, but the story I'd rather not put to words is even worse, and adding them together wasn't ever a pretty picture.

"I actually have a..." this time I didn't have to lie, since I just have realized I had a job to do. "I have a club trip to plan. You know, the orphans... a place to go... We still need to figure out the details with the local children's center."

I slipped out of the room swiftly, down the wide hall into my rather small bedroom. "I really have to clean this place..." I mumbled. As one would expect, my room was far from clean. Bed unmade, with half the covers on the floor, dropping off the mattress, my desk was cluttered with paperwork for the club and academy expenses. Manga and various clothing items were scattered across the floor, and the dust was not helping with the smell.

I plopped down on my desk chair, and finally remembered I wasn't doing this project alone. I bolted out of the chair and started to throw items on my floor into my closet in a blur, since the volunteer would be here any minute. I didn't know who, but Erza said it was going to be a surprise, so impressions were important in this case.

My room was not even half-cleaned when Zeref knocked on the door.

I hurried to it, straightening out the polo I went to school in, and opened the door to reveal an angry face of the blonde new girl in our club.

"Luigi!" I said, grinning.

She did not return the smile, rather, she glared at me with sharp, brown eyes.

"I'm guessing Heartfilia and brother already know each other," Zeref said, smiling slightly. "This almost never happens. Best of luck, you two!" He went off into the living room with a thumbs-up.

Lucy stared, waiting for me to do something, so taking the message, I stepped back, opening the door a little wider.

"Come in," I said.

Lucy walked in, and without even asking, took out a pink composition book, a ballpoint pen, and a small stack of printed papers.

"Let's get this over with," she sighed. She looked around, her face changing from a stern look to an embarrassed glint in her eye.

"You can sit on the chair," I suggested, taking the hint.

She shot back at me, "I knew that." She sat down in the chair, her face tinting pink.

 _I guess she's kinda awkward sometimes_ I thought. I sat down on the bed and smiled.

"So! I haven't done this before, so what's the plan?"

 **~ Lucy's POV ~**

I had just recovered from my confusion of trying to find where to sit and Natsu requested of me to take the lead and explain what we needed to do for the project, which was too much for my practical energy. Instead of answering the question properly, I decided to face-palm, hiding my shame of the earlier chair-incident, and the ignorance of what to do for the project.

"You really don't know?" I asked.

Natsu scrunched his face into a funny look, and replied, "Well... I would have known what to do if Erza allowed me the papers."

"You're the president, so why does Erza-senpai decide to take the lead?"

"For one, you don't need to use honorifics for the members- and for two, have you even met her? She's the natural master for literally everything! I had a small lunch group once I've organized, and once I've asked her, she's been telling everybody what to order, how to eat, and how to respectfully pay and thank the lunch man."

"Why don't you just ask her to stop?" I asked.

Natsu perked up, his eyes a little wider. "I've never said I hate it. She takes responsibility while I sit back, which isn't the most horrible way to raise a club, especially if you have Erza at the reigns."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. We've got an activity to plan. Erza-senpai wrote here—"

"Quit calling her that... it's freaking me out," Natsu interrupted.

I scowled and said, "Unlike you, I treat people with the respect they deserve. Erza-senpai is an older, more mature, organized one, who—"

"Ha! Keep telling yourself that."

I continued the list, ignoring Natsu. "We've got theme park, zoo, pool, museums of different kinds, arcade, theater, and there's a list of options for the museums, and addresses for the closest options previously said."

I looked up from my papers, and asked, "These all seem... very far from what the club is all about."

Natsu glanced at me. "Well... the earliest club members had a tough childhood, so we decided to volunteer for various children centers and take them places using the money from selling merchandise, fanart, and DVDs online and at the school."

"I see." I hid it, but a smile entered my eyes and threatened to spread my lips. _That's really sweet,_ I thought. Natsu leaned over and broke into a grin, studying my face. "Hey! You really do have feelings! You just smiled."

I swiftly jerked my head to him. "No, I don't have feelings!—- I... I mean..."

Natsu burst out laughing. "What do you mean you _don't_?!"

I blushed, turning away. "Quit losing focus from the objective! Let's just do the project."

Natsu calmed down and started to copy the paperwork and add up fund amounts, until I decided to mess with him. "You seem pretty chummy with that Lisanna girl," I said. "She wouldn't be too happy about you studying my face like that."

Natsu glanced up from his work. "Whadd'ya mean?"

"You should have been studying my eyes to really have noticed me smiling there... right?"

Natsu chuckled. "That's what you think."

I stared. "Are you saying you're an esper?"

"No... I'm saying I don't know."

I leaned back in the chair, crossing my arms. I grimaced, and said, "You're a tough one."

"I just can tell how one is feeling," he responded.

I shook my head. "Fine..." I gradually got embarrassed about my accusation, since the victim didn't react at all.

"Are you dating her?" I asked, suddenly. "Lisanna?"

Natsu looked up to the ceiling and tapped his pen against his chin. "I guess you could say that... She kept harping on about getting married and stuff, and we spend a reasonable amount of time together." He turned to me and grinned. "So I guess the answer is 'yes.'"

"I see." I intended to drop the subject, but unfortunately, Natsu brought it back.

"Are you dating anyone?"

 _I think I walked into that one,_ I said to myself.

"No... but I've dated before..." That was a lie. I haven't ever dated anyone in my life; I haven't kissed anyone -or- now that I thought about it, I have never even had a best friend, just those who had kept annoying me and constantly asked me to study sessions.

"So what should the location be?" Natsu said, interrupting my inner conversation.

I jumped, not expecting the sound of his rather squeaky voice. "Uh... sorry about that, I was thinking about something," I said to his surprised face. I shook my head and suggested someplace educational, but fun for the kids to learn something effectively. "We can rule out theme parks and arcades since they don't have educational value. Pool can be good exercise and social building... but—"

"Not when Spring had just begun," finished Natsu.

"Museums are educational, but most of it'll fly over the children's heads. We could watch a good movie, but I doubt we can keep everyone together in a local theater and watch something all of them can agree on."

"That brings zoo out as the winner," said Natsu. "Perfect! We could probably get a discount from the school's permission slip."

"Alright then. How many people are we bringing?"

"Plus the club members, we have group B for us, which is about twenty middle-school-aged students so... Not depending on how many people come, I'd predict about forty people!"

Sweat beaded on my brow.

"Seriously?" _I can't handle that many people_..

My phone buzzed, and on the screen I read a message, _Lucy, I can't pick up the medicine today, so do you mind?_

-Jude

I texted back, _What about the staff?_

Jude sent back a minute later, _They are off for today. Here's the prescription number_

And the number.

"Jude.." I murmured. "He's always like this."

Natsu looked up from his calculator. "Huh?"

I shook my head and put my phone back in my pocket. "I have to go, so good luck on your planning."

"But you were only here for ten minutes!" He complained.

"It was that long...?" It felt longer.

I took my bag and headed out the door, but before I left, I grinned and turned to the boy, "Any tips for me escaping the banana burning?"

 **lll**

I've never once in my life took the bus, and I could see why Jude suggested never to go on. It was peaceful for the first five minutes, until we stopped at a small neighborhood where a whiny old lady sat in front of me, complaining to her poor husband on the other side of the phone about their son suddenly taking drugs. It was a horrible matter, of course, but she hardly took it seriously and just started yapping on about how much money it would cost. What was worst is that ten minutes later a smelly, middle-aged man plopped next to me and tried to start a conversation with me about fishing.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I have not gone fishing yet..." I started.

The man stared at me with a horrified look, but before he could answer, we arrived at the pharmacy, giving me a chance to escape.

 _And I thought Natsu's brother was strange..._ I thought. He was, but that man was way too annoying.

"Hello! I'm here to pick up Jude Heartfilia's medicine. I have the number right here," I handed him the napkin I wrote it on.

The man sighed. "Jude again?"

I nodded.

"Okay, I'll just take a look at your ID and I'll be back with the medicine in a moment."

I rummaged through my purse and pulled out my student ID. "Is this okay?"

He tilted his eyebrow as he looked at it. He gave it back, looked me up and down, and asked, "Are you really seventeen?"

I stared at him, my face turning red. "Excuse me?"

 **lll**

I had just only entered the house when I heard a violent "CLUNK," and knowing my father collapsed as he always does, I rushed over to the kitchen to see the man currently wide-eyed and in the fetal position. His heavy, forced breathing distracted me from reading the label for the suspicious-looking shot mixed in with pills and tablets in the paper bag, so I ripped off the top and injected the clear liquid.

I waited anxiously for a half a minute, watching Jude loosen himself and started to breathe normally. I finally got a hold on myself and read the hand-written label: "Use only in emergency!" so apparently my instincts took the right path.

I, too, steadied my breathing while Jude finally got the strength to move. "Jude..." I said. "What the hell is up with you?"

My father turned to a sitting position against the sink cupboard. He chuckled softly. "Overworking?"

"Dad!" I yelled, refusing to use his name like I always did. "Tell me _now_! This is the third time for the past month you've collapsed and I have no idea why! Will you just stop being stubborn and tell me?"

Jude sighed. I thought he was too tired to yell, so he just went with, "Will you stop being stubborn and just let it go?"

I stared him straight in the eye. "You'd be dead if I wasn't here. You'd be dead if you were all alone, here in this dark, dreary house. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me! I deserve to know!"

Jude scratched his head. "Honestly, I don't know what the problem is. I've had this horrible stream of symptoms for so long; fevers, nausea, coughing up blood, and just for this year, collapsing, plus a lot more than that." He shook his head and smiled. "Maybe I'm just getting old."

"You sound like a middle-aged pregnant woman," I remarked.

"You sound like you need to work on your manners. Yelling at your father like that? Have I raised you to be such a spoiled young woman?"

At first I thought he was just joking, but I actually looked up to see his face, and it was stern and serious.

"Help me into bed. I don't feel too well to go about on my own," he said.

And that's the most we've talked all month.

 **~ A Week Later : Magnolia Academy ~**

Getting used to the club was tough, and I definitely wasn't, at all, used to it by a week after membership, where I was supposed to spend two times my club time with the annoying members plus a whole mob of children I didn't know -and wasn't close to wanting to know them- in a crowded zoo filled with smelly animals and processed meats being ravaged by suspicious forty-something year olds on fold up chairs. As you would guess, my first experience at a zoo wasn't anything close to good. Cancer, my butler and hairdresser, decided to take me out after my mother died of, ironically, cancer, to cheer me up (and, not to mention, because my father forced him to take me someplace "suitable"). Being attacked by a pygmy goat in the petting area, having eaten an exotic butterfly on my churro in the insect room, and tripping over a loose stone on top of a stray ice-cream cone that was right where my stomach-area was, is fun and all, but the weight of my mother's death made it worse, and being pitied by unknown workers wandering around who happened to hear me and Cancer's conversations did the opposite effect of comfort.

Now, I was determined to make my zoo trip fun, despite all of my traumatic memories of it. It would have been easier if all of the kids just shut up.

I sat in the corner of the club room, searching my phone for medical uses for my father's disease symptoms while Natsu was sorting out all of the children with the older, willing members of the club to look out for them while discussing with Erza about meal problems. A certain blue-haired shortie caught my eye, standing out against the children's neon yellow t-shirts. Even though she always looked like she did, red-faced and nervous, I could tell something was wrong. She looked frantically around the room so pitifully, it made me stand up and weave through the small crowd of children only younger than her, and head shorter than me.

"Wendy," I said, walking up to her.

Her face shown a flash of relief, and she greeted me with a small bow and a, "Hello, Lucy-san!"

"You look like you need something," I said, flushing slightly at the formal greeting.

"Ah! Yes.. Um.." she looked around. "I think my friend is here, but I can't seem to find him—" she was interrupted by a loud opening and closing of a door. A small boy around the age of fourteen emerged from the hallway to enter the room. His purple, spiked hair contrasted with his neon yellow children's center hoodie.

"Romeo-kun!" Wendy exclaimed. She turned to me and smiled. "Never mind, I found him." I smiled as I watched her skip off to join the boy, Romeo. I thought about my own life as I watched her greet him and laugh away with a little conversation they must have been having.

 _A fourteen year old is moving faster than me in her love life,_ I thought with a disappointed sigh.

My thoughts were interrupted with Erza announcing that it was time to get on the bus. There was an added groan from Natsu for some reason, and we headed out to the parking lot.

I was half-way through the door until I noticed a vibration in my shorts pocket. I headed to the side of the hall and checked my messages.

 _Dear Princess, it appears that Jude-sama hath caught a horrible fever and must be treated immediately. Whereto is the medicine that Princess uses for Jude-sama?_

\- _Virgo_

I texted back, _If his fever is worse then usual, call a nurse over. Give him the medicine in the upper cabinet overhead of the stove._

Not long after I entered the parking lot, Virgo sent back, _I thank you, Princess, but the nurse seems necessary. I hath given him the medicine._

 _And people wonder where I get my formal dialect_ I thought. I didn't care to message back, so I turned my phone off and entered the bus.

 **lll**

Plopping down on a seat near the back of the bus, I returned to my phone to continue to search for the diseases that may have been the case for my father. The bus was noisy, but even so, I heard the very loud conversation between Gray and Natsu.

"For the last time, Flame-Brain, a professional bus-driver can only drive this many children, and _not you_ , no matter how sick you'd get!" Gray cried.

Natsu whined. "What if I just run beside the bus instead of riding?"

Rolling my eyes, I turned back to my phone, but again I was interrupted by the passenger next to me who said, "It's rude to be on your phone the whole time we're on a trip."

I turned to see the girl, Levy, who argued with both me and Lisanna on very different subjects. She was wearing red glasses over her large, brown eyes this time, and on her lap sat a very large book with small text. I leaned over to see the title on the spine-cover, and read: _The History of Martial Arts_.

I narrowed my eyebrows. "You're not so much innocent, either, since you're reading on a trip."

Levy took off her glasses and folded them. "Reading is different," she simply said. "I didn't introduce myself properly, so I'll do it now." She held out her hand, and said, "I'm Levy McGarden. I already know you're Miss Lucy Heartfilia, right?"

I shook her hand. "Yeah."

"Wow, a Heartfilia, that's a real pleasure to be meeting one who's not over the camera. I've met your father once, you know," she said.

"Really? I never have heard of you before I joined the club."

"My parents write books for father, organizing data and such. We're good customers of his."

"I see."

"That's where we get our rent!" She grinned. She changed her expression. "Say, what were you reading on your phone?"

I showed her.

"Ah, symptoms of your father's problem, I'm guessing."

"He told _you_?" I said. My face fell. I've always known that Jude had very little trust in me, but not as much as this. "To keep something like that from his daughter... Until yesterday, that is."

"Well, my parents had to record it along with his other details of his life. I'm sorry he kept it from you."

I turned from her. "It's not your fault."

A boy, much younger than Wendy, which was strange since I though we were hosting a middle-schooler group, popped his head up from the seat in front of us.

"Hello!~" he chimed. "I'm Rowen!"

"Hello Rowen, how may I be of use to you?" I asked sarcastically, not making eye contact.

Levy grinned. "Sorry about Lu-chan, she's feeling a bit grumpy today."

"Lu-chan?—"

"Awww, that's too bad," said Rowen. "I bet it's the time of the month for her."

My face flushed (even though he was wrong), and I yelled, "How do you know about that?"

"I was right?" He beamed innocently.

Levy held in a chuckle.

"My mom told me about that," explained Rowen.

"Your mom? But she—" I said, without thinking.

Thankfully, Levy interrupted. "Lu-chan!" She turned to Rowen. "She sounds very brave to have taught you that."

"She _was_..." Rowen choked back a sob, his eyes filling with tears. "Lu-chan brought it up, so..."

My eyes grew wide with guilt, and Rowen started crying.

"Wait! Wait wait wait!" I begged. "I take back what I said! What I meant to say!"

Rowen turned his face to me.

"Just don't cry!" I went on.

Rowen winked, making me realize the farce. "You damn brat," I mumbled at the child, clenching my fists that I once held at the boy in protest.

Rowen grinned, but quickly went back to his act, and cried, "Lu-chan called me a 'damn brat!'"

"No I didn't!" I quickly responded. "And don't repeat that!"

"Rowen!" Shouted a girl his age near the front of the bus. "We know you're just messing with her, so quit making a fuss."

"Aww," said Rowen, back to normal. "I thought I was rather convincing."

My arms flopped back to my lap. "Who teaches you children at the center?"

"That bitch of a caretaker," mumbled a boy on the left side of the bus. "She outa get fired."

"Wow," said Levy, in awe. "These kids have quite the attitude."

"Don't encourage them!" I said a little louder than intended.

"We've arrived!" Announced Gray on a megaphone.

"FINALLY," yelled Natsu, who was collapsed on the ground. He desperately crawled to the doors, clutching at the bottom.

"I agree.." I murmured.

I reached the end of the bus, crawling out into the fresh air of that was the Acalypha zoo.

"Ah, dear old Acalypha," I cried, stretching out my arms. "I've visited some of my father's factories up here not too long ago." I chuckled. "Seventeen years living with him and I still don't know exactly what he does."

"Your business spreads out this far?" Asked Erza, patting Natsu on the back while he puked in some nearby bushes.

"Yeah," I answered, turning to a range of peaks. "We own most of the business properties up to there," I said, pointing to a specific, tall mountain.

Most of the students stood there, slack-jawed while I gestured to Natsu. "What's up with him?"

"Motion sickness," said Wendy, getting out of the car. "I get it sometimes, too."

She handed him a pill, which I guessed she often carried around with her.

"The zoo," murmured Lisanna, behind me. "This was my brother's favorite place. I've only been here once, and that's when an alligator tried to attack me. Scared the shit out of me, so I never came again."

"Oh really?" I said. "I guess an alligator is a lot scarier than a pygmy goat and a couple of pathetic part-timers."

"Well," said Erza. "If we want to compare the past to the present, let's give the memories something to compare to." She gestured to the rest of the group. "Well, kids? You ready to go to the zoo?"

 **lll**

"I feel like that penguin was possessed by something," said Levy, shivering.

We were leading group C, or rather, Lisanna was, since she was desperately trying to find a good place to eat at and doing head counts every thirty seconds. Despite us asking her if she needed any help, she shook us off and insisted that her job was hers and hers alone.

"I think there was one making bedroom eyes at me," said Loke.

"That's what you think about anything that has a pulse," chuckled Levy.

"Levy! Loke!" Intercepted Lisanna. "This is a place for children, so no inappropriate content will be mentioned from here on out."

"I think that if we want to eat, we should meet up with the rest of the group," I suggested, changing the subject.

"Finally! Someone who actually cares about this trip," said Lisanna. "This is why Lu-chan is my favorite out of the three of you."

"I guess that nickname's gonna catch on," I murmured.

"Kids," said Lisanna. "What do you all want to eat? Any food allergies?"

A couple of kids raised their hands to tell of their uncommon allergies that consisted of many things I did not know about. Tropical fruits, I knew, and at one point a small girl decided to proclaim her allergy to a certain type of bush that grew in South America.

"I remember being a kid like that," whispered Levy, wistfully.

I asked her what she said, since I had only found out afterwards, but she replied that she said nothing.

We decided on a local place in the food court where the kids could pick out any meal under the price of 800 yen, or rather, 7.5 dollars (I think), and notified the rest of the club of our mealtime by phone. By the time that the other three groups arrived, I felt the familiar vibration of a cellphone call in my skirt pocket, and, embarrassingly, the ringtone of an 8-bit anime opening.

I picked it up, knowing that it was an unknown number, a relatively good distance away from the group, to hear a high, nervous voice,

" _Hello? Is this Lucy Heartfilia, daughter of Jude Heartfilia?_ "

"Yes," I replied. "Who is this?"

" _This is the Magnolia Hospital speaking. One of your maids called in a nurse for your father, Jude, and she discovered that his conditions are far from normal, so we brought him in and found some terrible news_."

Sweat beaded on my brow. "And what should that be?"

" _I suggest you brace yourself, but_ " she cleared her throat. " _Your father is dying here in the hospital_."


	3. Chapter Three: He Wasn’t THAT Old

**Who knew there were so many daily occurrences that could halt the writing of my dear fan fiction? Luckily, I got this to be published on time! (Not really) I won't make any promises that the updates will always be on time, but I'll try my best!**

 **~ Lucy's POV : Acalypha Zoo :~**

" _Your father is dying here in the hospital_."

Sweat dripped down my face, probably staining my top, as adrenaline filled me from my feet to the top of my head. Natsu probably "sensed" my distress, and got up from the table. Though he was out of my vision, I knew he did.

"Par..don?" I barely got out.

" _Yes, in Magnolia Hospital. We predict the time of death is about in two hours, but if his suffering gets worse_..-" The nurse's voice failed to reach me any longer. I dropped my arm back to my side, not caring to turn it off. I fell on my knees, ignoring the pain that spread through them, caused by the hard, cold stone of the, zoo's ground, which I now considered to be the worst place on Earth.

"Luigi?" said Natsu, coming near me.

Loke and Gray along with Erza stood, but kept their distance.

"How could he have been suffering this much?" I spoke, but my words were barely audible. "How could he have kept this much from me?"

"Lucy? Are you alright?" Asked Erza.

Gray walked up and snatched my phone from the ground. He yelled into the receiver, "What did you say to Lucy?!"

Natsu slowly, but surely, neared me, and kneeled down to put his hand on my back. His touch was comforting, warm, and sent a feeling throughout me that made me stop moving. Even though I didn't want his pity, I did not jerk away from his simple, yet soothing gesture.

Gray bolted up after the heated conversation with the nurse on the line.

"You guys need to get Lucy to Magnolia Hospital. The nurse said that her father is dying there. Get a napkin and a pen, I need to write the information down," he said.

Erza returned with the supplies while Natsu and Loke helped me stand.

"Me and Loke'll take her to the hospital. You guys stay back and take care of the group," said Natsu. "Erza, assist Lisanna in leading the rest of the group." He turned to Loke. "I'll drive while you talk to Lucy."

 **~ Natsu's POV ~**

I took the lead while Loke lead Lucy along by her hands through the slight crowd of the zoo. I stopped occasionally to peek at a map now and then, and Lucy wanted to sit down half way through.

We stopped at a garden-area with a stone-brick outline, letting Lucy take a breather. I knelt down to her eye-level.

"Luce, I know you're exhausted, but you need to get it together if we're gonna get to the hospital. I won't stop you from resting for a couple of seconds, but you're gonna need to focus. Be careful that you don't trip get lost, okay Luce?"

Lucy brought her hand up to her forehead, and pushed her golden locks away from her face. She chuckled dryly. "It's impossible for you to address me by my actual name, huh?"

I grinned, trying to get her to smile for real. "I guess not, but Luce is your nickname, now, for me." I moved closer to her face. "Can you stand?"

She took my hands and used me as support. "Yeah," she said, simply.

Loke glared at me, looking both angry and disappointed. "What's the use for me if I can't get the girl?" He said loudly.

I ignored him, and reached the exit. After checking out, we made our way to the bus. With less people, it somehow seemed closer.

"Who was the bus driver, again?" I asked Loke. "Is she still there? In the bus, I mean?"

"Kinana. I doubt it, I think I saw her head out with the rest of the group," he responded. "You know how to drive a bus, right?"

"Uhh..." I remembered my four years of experience with driving, helping to cope with my severe motion sickness, since it isn't so bad when I'm at the wheel, but I didn't remember giant yellow vehicles fit for fifty people on my list of cars driven.

"Can we call a cab?"

"That'll take too long," answered Loke.

"An ambulance?"

"Unless we break the girl's leg or break your empty head, then the answer will be _no_."

"Then let's improvise," I said, my eyes growing wide with excitement, my pulse quickening.

Without a second thought, I increased my stride, still in the speed range for Lucy to hold up, and we reached the bus in the _ridiculously_ large parking lot.

"Keys?" Asked Loke.

Sweat beaded on my brow. "Shit.." I searched around in my pockets. "I _think_ Erza gave me one..."

I pulled out a small key, and fitted into the double-doors. Surely enough, the lock clicked.

"Voila~~" I said, opening the doors. "Convenient enough, eh?"

Hopping in, I led my way to the wheel. "This is... unique... to what I'm used to."

"Why didn't you think to bring Kinana?" Loke asked.

"Shut up! I can figure this out! Now work your ladies' man magic on Lucy to cheer her up, or whatever."

"Then I'm going to need some privacy with her," Loke said, smirking.

I blushed. "I _meant_ tell her some stories or jokes you tell your bimbos you date." I put the key into the ignition, and turned it. The loud sound of the engine startled me, and immediately lurched my stomach, but I felt better after I moved the bus out (and accidentally bumped into the curb) to start driving.

"How much time did we waste?" I asked Loke, who was looking up directions on his phone next to Lucy, who was sitting on the front-row seat on the left.

"Half an hour. We have an hour left to get to the hospital, not depending on traffic clearing up..." He glanced at the napkin. "Gray said that they're betting on two hours for Jude-san to live, right?"

Lucy nodded. "But I doubt that is the actual limit. These types of things are generously spared."

I shrugged. "As long as we get there in time."

Lucy sighed. I couldn't see what she was doing, and I refrained from looking in the mirror, but I do know that she chuckled a little bit.

"I have never been under this much stress since my mother was in the hospital," she said, softly. "I can't process the fact that two people who hardly even know about my life are helping me see a man who they haven't met and is going to live for a little more that an hour..." she sighed. "You're really something."

Those words always stuck out to me for some reason, now that I looked at the past. She said it so earnestly, she sounded like she was about to fall asleep, or in such focus to express her feelings. ("Either that or she was really high," later remarked Loke. I didn't deny it.)

"Watch the road, you dumbass!" Yelled Loke, who interrupted my thoughtful pondering.

I swerved from the noisy lane-separators, or whatever they're called, and continued to drive the giant bus on the correct lane.

"This thing is impossible to drive!" I yelled.

"This was a mistake.." murmured Lucy.

 **~ Lucy's POV ~**

After about twelve chances we almost got into an accident, not including the times that Natsu wanted to pull over to puke, we got to the hospital in an hour, giving us thirty minutes to see and talk with my dad.

"I bet he's been suffering with so much pain so far..." I whispered, holding my forearms. "Because I was late."

"Are we gonna chatter, or actually get our objective?" Said Loke.

Natsu nudged him. "You can take some time, Luce."

"No, Loke's right, we gotta go."

Loke, Natsu and I followed the directions to the room using the napkin of information that Gray gave us.

"Jude?" I said, entering the room instructed.

I knew it was the correct room the second I opened the door. The cries of the maids and the conversations of the troubled butlers all around gave me a flashback to when my mother had died. On a hospital bed, just so... suddenly. All around, hardly a sound besides wails of grief and whisperings of "what should we do?". Of course, I was only around seven or eight at the time, and didn't remember what they said, but I remember vividly the pale, lifeless body atop the bed, hands folded neatly over her waist, and a relaxed look on the head propped up against the pillows, naturally sinking in without control. She was... smiling. But Jude wasn't. Hardly dead, yet definitely not alive.

He sat against a stack of pillows on the raised top of the hospital bed, his eyes half closed, the crystal blue standing out against his pale, thoughtless face, glistening with a cold-sweat.

"Jude.." I said softly. I cleared my throat and corrected myself, "Dad?"

I neared the bed, Jude barely even turning to see me.

"Hey, there, Lucy..." he said in a hoarse, husky voice without the presence of air. "Didn't know you could make it."

He let out a series of noises similar to coughing, but he just didn't have the strength to do it.

"Your sickness..." I continued. "I...- how is it that bad?" I stared at him. My eyes, themselves, drained of life. "How could you have hid _that_?"

"Whadd'a mean?"

"Jude... you're _dying_... On a hospital bed. This is ridiculous... How could I have not known that this... _thing_.. is attacking you enough so that you end up _here_... I don't even know what it is."

"We don't either," broke in a nurse. "The doctors did a thorough examination, and nothing that we know of showed up. Mr. Heartfilia, here, has an unknown disease. It's not terribly rare to find a patient with something unidentified. We have guesses; he has common, every-day like symptoms all packed up into one horrible, fatal, unknown condition that eventually breaks in on itself and takes the patient down with it."

Silence fell into the room. It's weird... All of my questions had been answered, but I was so unsatisfied, I dared not to speak. _This_ is what I got? An, "I don't know," for something I've known little bits of, trying to fit the puzzle together, for almost three years of questioning. A "guess," even, wasn't good enough.

I stared to my father's cold, suffering eyes. I inhaled— hard. I was ready to let my feelings escape, but all my body could muster was a hard, uncomfortable sob. I didn't even feel sad enough to cry for more than a second. That was it. It was like a cough, releasing all the germs as much as I could muster, then it was over. It was so ridiculous, I started to laugh. It was small, but enough to make everyone in the room shut up and stare at me.

I looked at Jude once more and said, "Sir, I've joined a club. There are members here in the hospital, right now. Even though they forced me into it, I had fun on our trips. I think I've made some friends, or at least what will become a few friendships in the future. We travelled here on a school bus with an unqualified driver.. with only three people, all the way from the zoo, purely relying on luck and will. I know all of their names, and I even though I've only spent a week and a couple of days, I think I'm kind of.. growing attached. They like me too, I think— hell, I've gained two nicknames on the same day." I chuckled. "I've had an argument with some kid on the bus, and with a girl who insulted me about three times now. You've met her, she's a McGarden..."

I looked at Jude, seeing him nod slightly.

"Levy... no, I guess, Levy-chan. Since she calls me Lu-chan around the club."

I kneeled by the bed, still looking up at my father.

"I'm guessing that you're thinking that what I'm saying is absolutely ridiculous, but I feel like I now have a chance at living. All of my years, I've walked away from chances, turned away from people who wanted to befriend me, but now, instead of me doing it, they took the leap, and brought a lonely, shriveled loser such as myself into their arms." I inhaled. "I want to believe you're thinking of me, and wishing that I would make mistakes in life, miss chances, and lose people, like most people do. I want to live like a normal person, my life full of friends and past disappointments."

Jude gave off a look I've never seen before. It wasn't a smile, but his eyes sparkled, and he let go of a scorn he's been holding on for years. He said in his damaged voice, "Lucy, I do want you to do these things. I want you to take the leaps I wasn't able to. You don't need to take care of the Kozern. Leave that to your cousin. I don't know about your future, but I'll be sure to look after you and help you along the way." He actually turned the corners of his mouth upwards, and said his last words: "Don't die a pathetic death like I did."

I stared as he exhaled for the last time, his eyes draining completely of life. Adrenaline, once more, filled me. I shot up, and fumbled for his hands. I felt for his inexistent pulse, even though the heart monitor had gone flat-line.

"Can't you do something?!" I yelled at the nurses. "Bring him back?! Use one of your fancy, doctor-things to save him!"

I didn't know what to do, but the maids sure did. They burst out into tears, followed by the butlers. I squeezed Jude's hand, still trying to search for the life in the eyes I was staring into.

"Dad..." I whispered.

I didn't cry. My eyes remained dry as soon as I left the room, leaving the nurses and the staff alone in the heavily-atmosphered room.

I closed the door behind my back, looking down, in front of Loke and Natsu, patiently waiting on a bench, opposite the room.

"That's it," I told them, putting my back to the door. "He's flat-lined. Nurses said that there's no use in brining him back."

Loke and Natsu glanced at each other. "Like..." said Natsu. "He died?"

Loke punched him in the arm, leaving him to swear, but softly. Loke got up from the bench and wrapped his arms around me, making me lean into his embrace. Despite the gesture, I still didn't cry, but didn't back away, either.

Natsu got up, and, looking awkwardly around, decided to stroke my hair while Loke still held me.

I buried my face into Loke's chest, and wanting them not to hear me, I whispered, "Thank you.."

 **lll**

Going home wasn't easy. First, Erza called Natsu on the phone, yelling so loud, Loke and I could make out their conversation. " _NATSU!!_ " Was her first word when the poor boy answered his cellphone. " _WHERE THE_ HELL _IS THE SCHOOL BUS? DID YOU TAKE IT TO THE HOSPITAL WITH YOU?! I'VE TOLD YOU A MILLION TIMES IT'S TOO DANGEROUS TO BE DRIVING THAT THING, AND YOU DON'T HAVE THE KEY, AND YOU FORGOT ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN WE ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE BACK TO THE CHILDREN'S CENTER, AND_ —-"

I swiped the phone from Natsu's hand, and spoke over Erza's loud, deep voice.

"Erza-senpai, excuse me for interrupting your... _discussion_ , with Natsu, but it was my fault that the bus was taken from the zoo."

Erza cleared her throat after hearing my apology, and said simply, " _You are not the one at fault, Lucy, since you had an emergency. What I was about to say to Natsu is that he could of asked for help from Kinana, the bus driver, or have taken my car._ "

"You have a car?" I asked, surprised.

" _Yes, and I have taken it to the zoo to show Kinana the way to the zoo. I will be coming to pick you up along with her right now so you can drive safely back to the zoo. It's one thing to be in an emergency, but it's another to be completely careless, or dangerously forgetful_."

I sighed. "I see. Well, I'll be riding back with one of my maids today, since I have no use to return to the zoo, and they are here at the hospital with me."

" _Oh! Forgive my rudeness, but how is your father_?"

I said simply, without hesitation, "He died."

The line struck with silence for a couple of seconds.

"I _see... I don't know what to say than, I'm sorry, Lucy_."

"That's okay. I'm bringing the phone back to Natsu now."

I passed it on to the boy, and without another word, I joined Virgo inside to where my father lay on the hospital bed, with a thin, white sheet covering him from head to toe. Before seating myself next to the emotionless maid, I stared at the hopeless lump and whispered, "Good luck at Divine Judgement."

I sat myself on the fold-up chair next to Virgo, who was zoning out, half-looking at the corpse. I looked down and saw her trembling hands folded on her lap.

Instinctually, I placed my hand on them, and with my other arm, I wrapped her in an embrace.

As Virgo usually acts, she didn't react, but stayed in the hug, unmoving.

A nurse with puffy pink hair and a hat that fit a little too perfectly, entered the room, and breaking the silence with an atmosphere you could cut with a knife, she whispered, "I'm sorry."

 **lll**

As I had suggested before to Erza, I rode home with Virgo with her at the wheel. It was silent, and far from comfortable.

I finally caught the courage to speak after ten minutes of aggravating silence. "So... He's really hit the bucket."

"After all of those years of suffering," said Virgo.

"I bet that God's punishing me for being such a bitch all these years," I remarked without thinking.

"God shall not end a life for just unpleasant behavior," she replied. "'Twas his time, no more, nor less."

I sighed, counting the clouds that scattered the abnormally gray sky. "Court's gonna kick my ass with the inherit laws, huh?"

"We shall see."

Soon enough, I got the call back at home:

" _Lucy Heartfilia, my greatest condolences for your loss of your father. This is a call concerning your inheritance from your late father. Of course, we shall give you time to grieve, but I request of you to bring yourself and any close relatives to the main building of Jude Heartfilia's business, where we shall discuss the arrangements of the owning of the property and taking lead in the work of Jude. Perhaps after a funeral, if you're having one? Or whenever you are ready, but we shall need a week notice_."

"I understand. I'll call you back." I hung up the phone, my energy completely drained.

I didn't even care to take off my uncomfortable blazer, or my high socks, but I collapsed into bed completely how I was when I left the house, and immediately fell asleep.

 **lll**

Waking up was the most horrible thing I've felt that month, and that was a definite achievement. Even though I've slept ten hours of deep, undisturbed sleep, I was far from rested that morning, suffering from the biggest headache of my life packaged along with some nausea. Sorry... did I say _morning_? Well, five thirty AM was barely what any teenager called "morning." I was unable to fall back asleep, so, trying to cheer myself up from the recent death of my father, I curled up on my bed and watched the oh-so-familiar _Fairy Tail_ , hoping to chase my troubles away.

In the middle of the third episode, I got a mysterious message from a number I was not aware existed.

 _"Can't sleep?"_

I swiped down on the text and sent back, " _Who are you?"_

It was only thirty seconds I got another text.

" _Don't worry, it's only Lisanna from club. When my parents died, my siblings and I couldn't sleep for a wee_ k."

I frowned and put my phone down. I looked around my dry, lifeless, dark room full of nothing but my bed, desk, and bookshelves of textbooks and a small collection of light novels. The rest of the novels were stored in a box in my closet, protected by the piles of clothes I never cared to wear, prohibiting any visitors to be aware of my geeki-ness. I opened my mouth to speak to the dark, uncaring void, and what came out was, "Soon, I'm going to leave this godforsaken house."

I picked up my phone again and messaged back, " _How did you get my number?_ "

Again, she messaged in a nick of time. " _My sweetheart has his ways~~_ "

I remembered when the club explained that the teachers leaked my personal contact info to the main leaders for the sake of blackmailing me.

"Why the hell am I starting to like these guys?" I said out loud.

I sent back, " _You're good. I'm spending my time watching the mainstream goodness that is the_ Fairy Tail _we are all-aware of_."

She sent back, " _I'm starting to believe that FT is the only anime you've ever watched_."

" _To prove it, I could explain the whole plot of_ FLCL _in detail for you without the help of the internet_."

" _Oh, God, please don't, I don't want to embarrass seeing how far I was from the truth about it_."

I grinned, but decided to go back to questions.

" _Why are you up this early, and how did you know that my father died?_ "

" _Guess_ ," was her answer.

I typed out with care, " _Your precious sweetheart leaked the info, didn't he? And I'm assuming Natsu is your 'sweetheart._ '"

" _Right on both ways!_ "

I leaned back on my pillows and exhaled, feeling slightly better. My eyelids started to droop, slightly, so I wrote out for the last time that morning, " _Thanks, a lot, Lisanna. Even though it's kinda creepy you're up this late to text me about my late father even thought you hardly know me, you've succeeded in trying to cheer me up. I think I'm going back to bed._ "

I waited a minute for her response, but all I got was, " _I guess you're not as grumpy as I thought you were_."

And she didn't message any more.

Feeling confused, I put my phone back in its charger and curled up in my blankets to fall asleep in less than a moment.

 **lll**

I awoke to the _eve-_ so-pleasant sound of my obnoxious 8-bit ringtone of the _Lucky Star_ opening, in which I immediately regretted ever purchasing, but was too lazy to switch out to the standards.

I answered the call in a groggy, half-awake voice, "Yes?.."

I yawned while I heard Natsu's squeaky voice yap on and on, not even pretending to pay attention to him.

" _Oi, Luce, were you just asleep?_ " He asked, finally stopping his little rant.

I answered with a vague grunt, and curled back into my sheets, lazily holding my phone to my ear.

" _How could you be asleep at this hour? It's 11:30! You know, in the morning! Get up_!"

I hung up, but the action was useless since I awoke only five minutes afterwards to the boy barging into my room with Virgo standing in the doorway.

"Why are you here?" I asked into my pillow.

"To cheer you up!" He yelled. "I've cooked you a breakfast!" He slammed a paper bag on my desk.

"Why are you so loud?" I murmured, but then I turned to face him. "Rather... what the hell are you doing in my house?"

"I've told you on the phone! Get up! I have Gray and Erza downstairs. We're going to take you out to the town!"

I stared at the face of the grinning man-child with sleepy eyes, most definitely not ready for adventure. I pulled the covers over my head and mumbled, "I'm not going out today..."

Natsu crossed his arms and frowned.

"That depressed, huh? Are we bringing this day-out inside?" He sighed. "Virgo, can you bring Fullbuster and Scarlet up here?"

I couldn't see her, but I could only guess she bowed. "As you wish, Dragneel-sama."

Natsu sat on my bed, and, unexpectedly, said nothing.

I waited a good minute before peeking up from over my covers at the boy.

"Why are you here?"

Natsu turned his black eyes to me with a questioning look, but before he could say anything, Erza and Gray from club burst into the room, Erza pushing the door out of the way like it was her enemy. I've only seen her in her school clothing, and seeing her in casual clothing made me marvel at her actual beauty. Her glasses were gone, and she wore a ruffled, short-sleeved blouse with a thin, blue bow, and a skirt of the same color. Gray, to my amusement, was not wearing a shirt, but only black jeans and a silver cross neckless.

Virgo came up behind them, carrying a folded shirt, which I could only guess was Gray's.

"Gray! Where are your manners? The first time we enter Lucy's dwelling, you immediately take off your clothes?" Said Erza, glaring at the half-naked man.

Gray jumped and looked down. Instead of freaking out, he said, obviously tired of his habit, "I've told you that it happens on its own." and swiped the shirt from Virgo's arms.

"I like your introductions," said I, still hiding behind my covers.

Erza's eyes widened. "Oh dear, did we catch you at a bad time?"

I sighed. "Can you leave?"

Natsu decided to lie completely at the foot of my bed, making himself comfortable with his arms propping up his head.

"We're here to cheer you up! At OFTOC, nobody leaves a depressed member alone," he said.

"Leave me alone and get off my bed—"

Erza took Natsu from his t-shirt collar. "Lucy's obviously uncomfortable with us here, so we must be going, and catch her at another time."

I glared. "I'm fine, honestly, and none of you need to 'cheer me up.'"

"I've heard that before.." mumbled Gray, but he left the room anyway.

Erza popped her head back from the doorway and grinned. "Don't worry, we'll come back to keep you from being lonely."

Soon enough, that evening, I found myself face-to-face with Erza and other girls from the club at my front door, holding sleeping bags, backpacks, and, may I mention, Cana holding six packs of booze.

Cana grinned. "Yo, Lucy! We came for the sleepover! With refreshments~~"

I glared, and shut the door behind me. I intended to go back to my usual business, but Virgo happened to still be at the house, and I once again found more-than-strangers and less-than-friends people crowding around in my sacred temple (bedroom).

"Nice cave you got here, Lucy," said Cana, plopping down on my plush desk-chair, spinning around with glee.

I counted five who entered my room besides the crazy drunk invading my homework papers: Erza, Wendy, Juvia, Mira, and her sister, Lisanna, making six people who didn't belong in my house. It was too much. I decided to keep my composure, and asked calmly to the lead, Erza, "What are you doing here?"

She smiled. "Lisanna suggested that we throw you a slumber party in your rut when we asked for suggestions to cheer you up.

"I hope you don't mind us being here, Lucy-san," said Wendy, laying out her sleeping bag next to Juvia's. "This is my first-ever sleepover, and I'm so very happy to spend it all with you!"

While I was originally planning to kick them all out, Wendy's innocent brown eyes and gentle exterior made me lock my teeth and squint my eyes in strain to resist the adorable aura she emanated.

"Fine," I said, dropping my head to my chest. "You can stay..."

Lisanna grinned. "Fantastic! I hope you have a hell of a cheering up, because we're going crazy tonight!"

"Yeah! Break out the custom UNO cards and half-sugar cola with all of our favorite Disney movies!" sarcastically yelled Cana, hurting my ears. "In Diamond Edition HD~"

"I'm _not_ planning that, for your information, Cana," insisted Lisanna, with a smirk. "The Diamond Edition is too expensive."

"Actually, I planned the slumber party," piped up Mira, smiling.

Lisanna wrapped her arm around her sister. "Yup! Even though I helped suggest a couple of things, she's the one hosting."

"Great..."

Half an hour passed in what felt like days. The girls apparently brought pizza, which, to my pampered stomach, acted somewhat like poison. The guests discussed what their favorite foods were, not making me feel much better. Fortunately, nobody noticed my distress, and was able to endure without conflict, and let the pain pass. Fizzy drinks helped, too.

"Movie time!" Lisanna chimed.

"Has it been that long?" I mumbled.

"Aww, cheer up, sport!" Said Cana, wrapping her arm around me.

"'Sport?'-"

"What shall we watch?" Asked Wendy.

A so-called "sleepover necessity" was played, and I ended up cradling Mira who was in a fit of tears.

"But his mother! I can't imagine!"

"Geez, Mira, it's just a cartoon! Settle down-"

"But Bambi's mom!"

Back in the room, Mira displayed a "surprise."

"Are you kidding me? This isn't better than the UNO idea," complained Cana, drink in hand, staring at the board game.

"Hush, hush, young woman," said Lisanna, grinning. "What I have here is a board game Mira and I composed ourselves. You roll the dice to move forward on the board. If you land on a blue space, you roll one die. If it lands on an odd number, you pick a card from the 'dare' deck, and the even numbers are 'truth.'"

"If you land on one of these pink squares, you have to drink!" Added in Mira.

I raised my hand. "I'm not old enough to drink..."

Wendy smiled sheepishly. "If you haven't noticed, I'm still only fifteen."

"Juvia dislikes drinking," said Juvia.

"It's irresponsible to ingest alcohol on a school night," added Erza.

"Fine, fine, we'll get rid of the drinking part," said Lisanna. "But it's your guys' fault if we all die of boredom."

"Wimps," said Cana, hiding the whiskey behind her back.

Erza suggested every time someone lands on a pink square, it adds a round of "Who's the King?" game. Not knowing we'll come up against, we began.

As the woman of the hour, I rolled first, and moving my standard Monopoly piece down the home-made board. I landed on a blue square, and I picked from the truth deck, eyeing the even number on the die.

"Alrighty, Lucy, pick from the deck!" Said Lisanna.

I picked the top card and read out loud, "Explain your worst first date in detail."

I clenched my teeth, keeping the card in front of my face. "We sorta have a problem..."

" _What?!" Was all of the reaction of all the older girls. "You've never had a date?"_

I stared blankly at their over-reacted faces. "Is it _that_ surprising?"

"That's not fair! Pick another card—" Cana begged.

"The fact that I haven't been on a date in the first place makes it the worst," I insisted. "Now let's move on."

Time past, and somehow, half of us ended up standing in the center in only our underwear, singing, "- _And a happy new year_...~"

Mira recorded it on her phone, causing me to blow out in a raging attempt to snatch her phone away. She had already caught photos of Juvia crying in the corner, Lisanna kissing Cana, and Wendy reading one of Erza's smutty books out loud.

"Why did you even bring one?" I asked, but Erza just shook her head _very_ slowly.

"Juvia's secret is aloud! She is too ashamed!" Juvia sobbed in the corner with only her undergarments covering herself.

"Everybody knows that you have a crush on Boxers, Juvia," said Cana. She then turned to Lisanna. "You sure need to step up your game if you want to empress Natsu." She winked

The girl blushed a vibrant scarlet. "Who are you to judge! You've kissed way too many people to have the _right to judge_!"

I bashfully slipped my clothes on while saying, "You two are dating, right? When I talked to Natsu the other day he was sort of unsure on the subject."

Lisanna made a sorrowful expression and turned her head to me. "He talked to you about that?"

Mira frowned. "Let's drop the subject and comfort Wendy over here."

Wendy was teary-eyed, but not crying, curled up in a pitiful, little ball. "Is that what humans really do?"

I sighed. "This'll be one hell of a night..."

The clock only stated that it was 22:13.

 **To be continued next month**


	4. Chapter Four: Happy Natsu Day!

"Who's the King?!" chanted everyone but Juvia and I.

We all drew our wooden sticks, and because of all the Truth or Dare nonsense, I barely had enough energy to announce that I was the one who was "King."

"Alright, whatever," I sighed. "Number 1 and 4 have to hug for the rest of the game."

Cana took one look at Wendy's face, and rushed over and wrapped her in a tight embrace. "I'm never letting go of this wittle fuzzball!"

Wendy's face tinted pink as half of it got buried in Cana's cleavage.

"Who's the King?!"

I drew a 3, and thank God, I was not anybody who was chosen, but Wendy was, and by Lisanna's command, had some trouble doing five push-ups with Cana still hugging her.

Next, Erza was the "King," and I was forced to strip out of my pajama pants. I have already sang half-naked in the room with Erza, Lisanna, Juvia, and Cana before, so this wasn't as embarrassing as it should have been.

Cana was the next "King," and naturally tried to make a member drink a shot from her giggle-bin.

Sweat beaded on my brow as I heard that my number was chosen, so I tried to refuse, but Lisanna argued. "If it was Wendy, than we would refuse, but you're a year from being old enough to drink. Rules are rules."

I took up the glass, and my hand started to shake, but I swallowed my pride along with the burning sensation of the destructive liquid. Not long later, I felt it, and began acting a little more crazy than anyone would have expected.

I learned later that the crazy ones of the group (Erza, Cana, Lisanna, and Mira) took this opportunity to get some "juicy secrets", out of me, even though it was just one shot.

"Who are you crushing on?" Was the first question from Mira.

In my drunk, shameless self, I held a peace sign with two fingers. "No one! I'm just one hopeless virgin!"

"How did you like your alcohol, Lucy?" Asked Cana.

"Can I have another drink?" I answered, swaying.

"What is your relationship with Loke?" Asked Lisanna.

"That pervo's gotta got some plenty of girls~~ Because he talk to me like nothing..." I started to slur. "I hate that bastard..."

"If you could do anything right now, what would it be?" Asked Erza.

"To have another shot!" I cheerfully answered.

"What is your deepest, darkest secret?" Asked Mira.

I was shocked when I was told the next morning that I replied, "I have about a thousand copies of one series of a light novel when I accidentally clicked the wrong amount on that online shipping place~~... or was it eBay? I...- that's not dark.. I mean... Jude got mad... I probably should have answered that I never ever loved my father, Jude..."

They decided to continue playing with me as a drunk, since Mira thought it would be funnier.

I woke up that morning to girls spread about my room in a horrible, chaotic manner. I guess Cana refused to let go of Wendy, since they were both snoring away in a small bundle. Juvia was the only one who slept normally, since all the girls had half of themselves out of their sleeping bags and their faces covered in chocolate and other various snacks. I didn't remember much, but I felt a horrible headache and wished to do anything but get up. I was a mess, along with the others of the group. I forgot to put my pants back on, my hair was curled and frizzy and half-up into a bun, and my face gained a couple of zits from the sugar my body wasn't used to.

Cana decided to do the loudest sneeze I have ever heard in my life, causing me to collapse back onto the pillow in pain.

"I have a hangover from one shot of whiskey?" I said out loud.

 **I I I**

"Yer not-ta lookin' too good, 'eartfillia-san," said Beth, one of the infamous "gals" I have once described before, the one with the strangest accent.

"You could say that a bit quieter," I sighed, sitting down.

"I mean, look-a' you! No makeup, yer hair'sa mess, yer missin' half yer dog-gawn books. I guessa' can't blame you, since yer father 'n all."

"My books?" I asked, then groped through my bag to find that, indeed, my books were not there. I clenched my fists and brought them to cover my ears. "Damn this.. I'm a total mess today."

"Heartfilia-san!" yelled an unfriendly voice I did not need to hear this morning. Miss Minerva was known in the school to have a relentless attitude, and I did not disagree. "Having some trouble this morning, huh? I've heard you skipped class yesterday, and got a couple of boys in trouble. May you explain yourself?"

I put on my best poker face and took a deep breath. "Sorry, ma'am, but I should I have notified you that it wasn't Loke and Natsu's fault for trying to rush me to the hospital while my father was wanting to give his last words. I guess the next day wouldn't be too good, after your father dies and you have the responsibility to make decisions for his business; but I apologize for skipping, and I will try harder next time."

I guessed that Miss Minerva didn't hear the entire story of my absence, since she looked thoroughly embarrassed at the explanation.

"O-Oh... I'm sorry to hear that, Heartfilia-san... I guess I'll be a bit less harsh.."

 **l l l**

Club was a complete mess. The moment I walked in, all eyes were on me. I tried to ignore it, and walked to the benches, but a small swarm of people gathered around to console me. Natsu was the first to arrive at the bench, and plopped down beside me.

"You okay, Luce?" He said, keeping his hands in his pokets.

All I did was stare around at the crowd, and kept my eyebrows narrow.

"Awww," continued the boy. "If you are hiding feelings from us, you _can_ let them all go, you know."

Instead of "letting my feelings go," or sarcastically commenting on their behavior, I sat back on the bench, crossing my arms in front of me.

"Instead of me doing the talking, can you give me some advice on coping with my father's death?" I legitimately asked the crowd of ten.

Loke was the one who walked forward and grinned. "I can cheer you up a bit. How 'bout going on a date with me sometime this week?"

I raised an eyebrow at the obvious player, and said that I was convinced he was joking.

"You already hit on her, Loke," said Levy. "This joke is getting old."

Loke ran his hand through his hair. "What if I told you that I was serious this time?"

The group, including me, all burst out in dry laughter.

"The longest relationship you've lasted in was a week, Loke," said Gray.

Loke grew red. "Well... if Lu-tan is willing, than I plan to change my ways!"

"Lu-tan?-"

"So, what'll it be?" Asked Erza, staring at me.

I narrowed my mouth into a frown. "I'm not falling for a prank like this."

Loke put on a face of genuine pity. "My sweet flower, why would I hook up with you for such a short period of time right after your father died?"

I lifted a shoulder. "I guess that's a good point..-"

"Loke-san has never asked someone out like this before," beamed Wendy.

"One date," continued Loke.

I sighed and looked up at the fake puppy-eyes, and finally gave him my answer: "One date."

The small group erupted into half of a cheer, and half of a gaping mess.

"You're making a mistake!!" Yelled Gray over the other nine, who were sort of celebrating.

 _It's just a date..._ I thought, eye twitching.

 **l l l**

I arrived at my home to find all of the staff huddled around the dining room table, searching through papers and printed pictures.

"What are you all doing?" I asked.

"Princess," replied Virgo. "We are currently planning Jude-sama's funeral for next week. We would like to partake of your preferences, if thou shalt not mind."

"Preferences on white lilies and mahogany coffins? I think you got that task covered on your own," I said, turning away.

I balled myself up into a protective lump on my unmade bed the moment I entered my room. After a couple of good, satisfying moments of sheer bliss of loneliness, I regained my composure and collected my phone from the pocket of my bag.

There, I saw, were ten unread messages, all from the same guy. The amount of stickers and emojis hurt my eyes with the brightness. I read:

" _Lu-tan!!!!~~~ Welcome home! I'm only guessing your at home~ You aren't the type to text and walk!!_ " - Loke

The multi-colored hearts and smiley-faces probably reached the limit on the message.

" _M-kay... you can't possibly take this long to go home. Maybe if I come home with you, it'll solve a couple problems~_ ~" I didn't really know what problems it would solve, but I got the message anyway.

" _Lu-tan, call me. The Lok-machine is getting lonely,_ " Broken hearts and teary-eyed faces filled the bubble.

And the rest were just Loke begging for attention.

"Goddamn it, Loke, I don't need both you and Natsu messaging me all the freaking time!" I said out loud.

As if on cue, Natsu texted me.

" _Luce if your ever feling bored er lonel, you can come to meee!_ "

His simple, plain, emoji-less text comforted me.

Of course, only seconds later, Levy decided to send me a voice message, telling me to " _Perk up! Do your best! Don't feel down, because we're here for you!_ "

All of this was a huge impact. If I was actually in the mood to do it, I would block all of them and chuck my phone across the room; but, alas, the phone fees must be spared. I chuckled. For the first time in my life, because of real people doing _real_ , actual stupid things in _real_ life, I laughed. I couldn't help but feel cheery at the fact that they want to help me.

I lay down on my bed once again and replied to each one of them:

" _Thanks._ "

A horrible thought struck me just as I sent the last message to conveniently-timed Lisanna who had the perfect video of ANIME CRACK to help me. I bolted up into a perfect sitting-position.

I immediately escaped my bed, and threw the door open. "Virgo!" I yelled. "When's the funeral? Court's gonna get me in the ass and I need your help!!"

 **~ Natsu's POV : Dragneel Residence :~**

"Good to be home," I said, stretching while entering my creepy and definitely suspicious home. I looked around, cautious of any Zerefs out to greet me in the worst possible way, but the hall was safe to run across to enter into my small room.

Only five minutes of peace and _My Hero Academia_ , and Zeref knocked on my door. I quickly paused my laptop and sprinted across the messy, darkly lit room and opened to the baby-face of the terrifying adult.

"Zeref... I didn't know you were home today!" I stammered.

Zeref smiled widely, closing his eyes. "Brother, how could I be away on a day like this? I am proud to say that it's your third anniversary of moving in to this house! Or, 'Natsu's day'! I have invited those of the Banana Brothers and got meals for the occasion."

Sweat beaded on my brow. "Lemme guess... Ham with banana cake and green tea?"

Zeref's eyes grew wide. "Why, no, Brother. Those are important festivity catering for sacred events such as our brotherly bonding every month. It is not spent on your special day! I have prepared your favorite, spicy curry with triple chocolate cake!"

"That's a first..." I said, aside, but turned to him. "Great, but can you skip out on the Banana Brother thing? I swear when you invited me one time, one dude was making eyes at me during, -ehem-, one-night-stand-sharing-time... thing.."

Zeref frowned, slightly, keeping his smiling eyes shining. "I see. Well, I can cancel the party I was originally planning, even though Luis was baking extra-special cookies..."

My "conversation" was interrupted by the ringing of my laptop, meaning someone was calling on "Talkster." "So... See yah in...?" I asked.

"Two hours, Brother. I have to pick up the preparations." And Zeref walked off, allowing me to bolt over to my laptop and pick up the call from my online friend, " _Hibickupgirls_ ," or Hibiki.

" _Hello, my dear, fellow geek, whom I love to chat with, and is so nice, and lets me win on games I suck at,"_ said Hibiki from the computer.

"What do you want, man?" I asked.

" _Well, I have received word from a certain someone's certain girlfriend that it was his birthday_ ~~"

I used the date of me moving in as my birthday for somewhat of a replacement since I didn't know my real birthday.

"We call it 'Natsu's Day,' here at the house," I replied. "And what about this certain birthday?"

" _Well, his super hot girlfriend invited me to come. Her and I are pretty tight, you know. I wanna talk to you and meet your new friends! You know, the new girl at your club! You talk a lot about her._ "

Hibiki lives close by, about an hour away, which we found out when he went to the restaurant I worked at and saw my name tag, which possessed the super-cool surname I used on basically every username on every game I've ever played with him when I met him online half a year ago. He's visited the house, like, twice. For half an hour each. We aren't that close.

"If I'm inviting Lucy, then you are prohibited from entering my propriety. We don't need our newcomer to think that her leader has a whole bunch of weird, pedo friends."

" _Aww, protective of your 'ittle duckling, aren'tcha_?"

"Well, she pretty much hates me, so I'm sure she's not gonna come. You can come if you want, but make sure to bring a present."

" _Yeah, no. The only present you're getting from me is not having your busty female friends fall for me in the first five minutes I enter the room. See ya, man_."

I hung up and leaned back on my chair. "What a jerk..." Abandoning my laptop, I turned on my phone to the chat I used to notify the club about anything special.

 _im having a "birthday" party in two hours if anyone wants to come._ I wrote.

Only a couple of seconds later, Levy replied with: _Sounds fun! My schedule's clear, so write me up on the list, haha!_

 _i'll bring snacks_ wrote Gray.

 _I bring booze_ -Cana.

 _who said you can come ice queen elsa?_ -Natsu

 _I'm guessing Elsa is Gray?_ -Lucy.

 _Lu-chan! You joined the chat!_ I could basically hear Levy's ecstasy.

 _Hip-hip-hooray for me, I guess, but what's with this ice thing with Gray?_ -Lucy

 _Long-story-short, Gray stripped and accidentally spilled ice water on his boxers_ -Erza

 _Hah!~ Like it was an accident, that pathetic virgin,_ wrote Loke with his usual overuse of emojis.

 _what the hell do you mean by that, playboy?_ -Gray

 _Back to topic, my gentlemen. Who's coming to the party?_ -Erza

Cana, Gray, Levy, Loke, Erza, and definitely Lisanna confirmed.

 _I may come late, since I have an important phone call to make, but I'll come if there are no difficulties_ wrote Lucy.

 _be cautious of two orange-haired perverted snobs attending_ -Natsu

" _I'm not a pervert, but a perverted gentleman!" Itaru Hashida, August-something, 2010_ -Loke

 _nice reference loke but dont tell me hibiki's gonna come? i cant stand that guy_ -Gray

 _Ah, yes, the one man who cannot withstand my incredible good-looks and charm, Hibiki himself, the king of the Player's Club_. -Levy

 _He hit on me, too_ -Erza

 _Saaaame_ -Cana

 _I think I'm used to it by now, since Loke made me be, with the messages and all._ -Lucy

 _I do it with love, sweetheart_ -Loke

 _Call me that again, and I'll break into your phone and message all the girls you have a "relationship" with and I'll say that you enjoyed all the Otome games you borrowed from me, your, what? 11th girlfriend you have this month?_ -Lucy

 _That was a VERY specific threat_. -Levy

 _whatever. i said hibiki can come and guessing that he knows i have access to girls his type hes coming_ -Natsu

 _Alrighty, then, I guess we'll see you in, probably an hour and thirty? -_ Levy

Everyone said their goodbyes and logged off, leaving me somewhat lonely, but I felt better when Lisanna arrived at the door.

"Yo!" She said, shooting her arm in the air. "Happy Birthday, Natsu!"

Lisanna hugged me briefly and held up a vibrantly-colored flame-design party bag. "I think you'll like it."

I grinned. "Zeref likes it if I open all the gifts at the same time in front of everyone." And I placed the bag on the table.

"Awww, okay, but doesn't that get embarrassing?" She asked.

"Ah, well, my brother likes it, so.."

"That's sweet," she said, smiling. "To do that with your brother."

I shrugged. "Changing topic, Zeref won't be here until a half an hour, so we need to clean."

Lisanna perked up. "Wait.. we're here alone?"

I headed to the kitchen while she followed. "Is that a problem?" I asked, finding no difficulty with it.

"Ah..." she murmured, turning pink. "No.."

I instructed Lisanna to clear the table while I swept the floors.

"Wow, you actually do know how to do a little work," she said. "I've seen your room, and I've assumed that you hate cleaning."

"I _do_ ," I replied, emphasizing the "do." "Zeref taught me how, but I still despise it. They make me do it at the restaurant as well. Like, why does it need to be clean all the time? It'll just get messy again, and its a waste of energy, too! I mean, people enjoy it, but I don't understand how.."

Lisanna sighed dreamily. "Maybe its one of those things that they just love for no reason." She looked up at me through her eyelashes, and smiled. "That kind of stuff."

"It's just cleaning, Lisanna," I said, chuckling. "Not some kind of philosophical metaphor— if I used that phrase right.."

"Close enough."

We continued to clean, I wiping down the countertops while Lisanna did the dishes. When I was about to put the towels away, I turned my back to Lisanna, and, dropping the towels on the floor, felt her press against my back and wrap her arms around me.

"You know," she said, the warmth of her breath trickling through my t-shirt. "You're dense, you can never stay still, you eat way too much, and you lose your temper too quickly, and you have horrible taste in... everything; there's one thing that I can't deny that is really great about you, Natsu."

She pressed her forehead between my shoulder blades and whispered, "I'm in love with you for no reason.."

My eyes widened as my face grew warm.

"What?" Was the only thing that exited my mouth.

Lisanna let go, allowing me to turn around to face her.

"Why?..." I finally said after staring, unbelieving at her.

Again, she looked up through her eyelashes and smirked. She put both hands on the sides of my face to pull me close, but before our lips could meet, I heard the door open and close, Zeref shouting joyfully, "Brother! I have gotten the flame designs from the party-planning store down the street!"

I jumped back from Lisanna, who let go and crossed her arms. She smirked at me, leaning a little closer. "I guess we'll have to continue this later..." And trotted off to help Zeref with the bags.

I stared off into the distance confusion spreading throughout my mind. "What... the hell just happened?"

 **~ Lucy's POV : Heartfilia Residence ~**

"Yes... I know, sir, I just need to have this done in a week, and I'll consult my cousin before the date. Yes, just a week, the 25th. Alright, I'll see you then, or call back to reschedule if there's a problem." And I hung up from one of the most important calls of my life. It wasn't much then, but little did I know what lay ahead. Magnolia City Hall had _weird_ rules, of what I heard from my butler, Capricorn who had assisted with legal issues my father had. I dialed up the number to my cousin, Sting, nervous since he wasn't easy to talk to.

"Sting? Hi.. it's Lucy Heartfilia... your cousin?"

" _Yo yo yo, Cuz! Nice to hear from you! Miss me, much?_ " He said.

"I can only guess that you got the call from Virgo about Jude," I said, ignoring his question.

" _Ah, yes, I never knew Uncle was that old. Anyway, I'm guessing this is a condolence call for the good ol' relatives? Or a funeral invitation? I can't go, since I'm busy on... whatever date that might be..._ "

A small vein formed visibly on my forehead as I spoke into the receiver. "I'm pretty sure you're open for the past week, you hopeless NEET. I need you over at city hall to fight for your multimillion-worth business, since I'm most likely too small, young, and fragile to handle it."

" _What are you suggesting?_ " Asked Sting, over the phone.

"I'm _suggesting_ you get your ass over here to Magnolia, the most lovely country in the world, and become the youngest student to ever inherit a business with this much worth and fame just a city over from Magnolia. I've already arranged a meeting with the mayor and one of my Jude's lawyers. Your parents have already trained you for this moment, haven't they?"

The other line went silent for a good half of a minute, but I didn't back down. Sting exhaled, finally, after thinking it over.

" _Well, if you put it that way..._ "

"The 25th, this month, you come to Magnolia City Hall to deal with this whole fiasco along with me. Bring your brother and parents. I don't even care if you come to the funeral three days before, but the chance of a lifetime is slipping from your deformed clutches, so I recommend you come and sign the little piece of paper."

Sting hung up. He coming to Hall or not didn't matter, since I wasn't going to inherit the business, no matter what.

I rose from my bed and walked to the window, staring out at the million-dollar garden with its shining fountains and electric lights illuminating on the countless, flawless flowers of a variety of bright colors. I saw three maids working on a nearby bed of primroses.

"I can't wait to get out of here!" I said aloud, stretching.

All of my life, I've been in a protective bubble of luxury and wealth, oblivious to the everyday problems "normal" people encounter. I've had tutors, three square, balanced meals with carefully-coordinated snacks done by my own maids who clean my room and personal bathroom everyday, with extra life-accessories any time I wanted. It was a perfect life, of course, and having friends topped it off perfectly, but the want for a change took over my mind ever since I started at the pretentious school for people just like me. I've arranged a plan in my head, and refused to stay at the life any teenager would have wished for, for whatever reason I had in my heart. Selfish, of course, but thrill enticed me. And, now, I was just about leave for my first normal social gathering with my club members I now called my friends.

I just needed to find out what to wear...-


	5. Chapter Five: Quatro Cerberus

While I ignored my constantly-buzzing phone with messages flooding in from the needy Loke, I searched through my over-sized closet for anything wearable to a "party." Though I haven't ever been to one...

The notifications eventually became unbearable as I applied my make-up in front of my mirror, so I marched across to my phone on my pink comforter on my bed.

I scrolled through the messages, mostly consisting of requests for snacks for the party and for me to "accompany him to the grand ball tonight, my princess."

I opened up _Talkster_ and spammed him with middle-finger emojis, but he replied with a equal amount of sad puppies.

 _"I'll go with you if you quit spamming me"_ I messaged.

 _"Great! I'll be there in half an hour!" -_ Loke

I put down my phone and rushed over to the door where I called for Virgo.

She returned with her hands in front of her and bowed. "You called, my Princess?"

"Yeah.. Do you have any dresses I can borrow? I'm going to a party— some shoes, actually, will be nice, too."

Virgo bowed once more and said, "I understand. I shall return in a moment."

I took the opportunity to flop on my bed and search through the chat of the club, the latest message being Erza's selfie of her in a stunning purple dress with rose patterns, and her red hair in a bun.

I wrote, _"Wow, Erza! You look super pretty!"_

 _"Hot DAMN girl! I gotta beat you in the challenge of sexiness!"_ -Cana

 _"Or you can just dress up for the party..."_ -Levy

 _"Let's all post our pictures! It'll be fun!"_ -Mira

Cana, only seconds later, sent a picture of her in a "dress", it being a cropped top and a long, wrapped around skirt.

 _"What's up with your hair?"_ -Lisanna

 _"And your eyeshadow?"_ -Levy

 _"Is that material see-through?"_ -Lucy

 _"This is what men really want!"_ -Cana

 _"'Fraid not, my friend"_ Sent Levy, with a picture of her in a gorgeous orange, short dress with her hair in a matching bandana with light pink flowers in her light blue hair.

 _"Nice, but I don't know how to send pictures on my laptop, so you're gonna have to see me in person in my INCREDIBLE pink dress in PERSON, so be prepared*_ -Lisanna

 _"I don't know what to wear..."_ -Lucy

Just then, Virgo knocked on my door, and burst through not a millisecond after. "Princess, this was in thy mother's closet, and I think thou will look- as the modern children say- fabulous... in it," she said in a halted speech pattern.

She held up a long, burgundy dress with a v-neckline and thin straps.

My eyes widened. My modest, humble mother wore something like that? I was somewhat surprised, but it caught my interest. I've worn things sort of... daring, if you could call that, before, but it being my deceased mother's made me uncomfortable.

"This is Princess's first party, is it not?" Asked Virgo. "Layla-sama would be proud."

"It's... hers?" I barely got out of me.

Virgo simply nodded.

I stared at the dress, taking in its color, and felt a warmth spread over me, like Mom.. wanted to have me wear it, since it was my first outing.. Like she would be with me. Or, you know, something... _less_ cheesy.

I took the dress from Virgo, who assisted putting it on and did my hair. Nothing much, but a side ponytail with a matching burgundy ribbon, and with a curling iron, made my hair wavy.

She picked out black, heeled sandals to go alone with it, and in a nick of time, I was ready.

"The spitting image of Layla-sama. Thou look-eth like a picture, Princess," said Virgo.

She left, and waiting for Loke, I picked up my phone to join the chat once again.

"*guys its just a party with food and video games not a victorian ball wtf" -Natsu

And a bunch of pictures of the members' fancy clothing.

 _"Uh, nope! I'm taking ya'll to a joint very well known for kids who need to get out of the stupid, virgin shells of yours"_ -Cana

 _"Please don't be a strip club.."_ -Lisanna

 _"Please be a strip club.."_ -Loke

 _"Cana, may I remind you that some of the people in this chat are minors and will be caught easily if sent to a sketchy place like of what you're thinking"_ -Erza

 _"how the hell did you type that fast?"_ -Gray

 _"I'm gonna get you guys to an underground dance club!"_ -Cana

 _"May I ask why you know of an underground dance club?"_ -Lucy

 _"I ain't poor, you know, so I can hire "underground party-places guys," (my dad) just like that. Anyway, Lucy, you're back! Show us a pic of those glorious things! ...and your dress, or whatever. LOL"_ -Cana

 _"*I'll keep my dignity until we get to the club"_ -Lucy

 _"Did you just ask my sweetie-pie to flash and send a picture?_ " -Loke

 _"SHOULDN'T YOU BE DRIVING, MY DEAREST MISSING LINK???_ " I sent, along with the middle-fingers.

 _"Aren't you two the cutest?"_ -Levy

I shut my phone off, put it on silent, and shoved it into my clutch purse. I closed my eyes and sighed. "Geez, it's not even official and they're acting like we're a married couple..." Of course, this wasn't the case, I found out a very long while later, how friends actually act around married couples.

Not wanting to ruin the wonderful effort Virgo put into my hair and makeup, I didn't do anything but sit on my bed until Loke arrived at the front door, wearing a much different suit than before, unbuttoned at the front and intentionally untucked, with pants clashing with the tie he wore.

"Greetings, my sweet darling," he said, hands in his pockets.

I raised my eyebrows. "Check you out. You look like an eight year old who got lost in the formal wear collection at WallMart."

"I took reference from a very underrated men's clothing magazine, written by a women who says fellow females prefer the messy, mischievous look for going out to mysterious places," he explained. "And you, my lovely lotus, look like the hottest belle of the ball." He took my hand and placed a swift kiss upon my knuckles.

I quickly retracted my hand and chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah.. let's get to the place Cana suggested before they all get wasted without us."

Half-gawking at the over-the-top sports car Loke drove, unnaturally clean and held the slight scent of perfume, I entered the front passenger seat as Loke typed in the address Cana sent him, and was off through a street I didn't even knew existed.

"So what do you think this 'dance bar' she's talkin' of is all about?" He said, breaking a long silence filled with a low-volume rock playlist going on in the background.

I shrugged. "For some reason I picture it as a tap dance class.." I said without thinking.

Loke chuckled, but didn't say anything, making it seem like he agreed with me. He kept making awkward attempts to break the silence, but, being as I am, broke it off with some sarcastic remark I was sure to pay for later.

Only a half an hour later, we arrived at the place. I didn't really know how we ended up trusting Cana's words and following her directions to a place we knew would spark undeniable regret, but, alas, here Loke and I stood, in an alley between two convenience stores at the end of Strawberry Street.

"Damn," I said, with a smirk. "It sure would be nice to live here, despite whatever disastrous secret we're about uncover in this pleasant street."

"We need'a wait for the others," said Loke, leaning up against the alley wall.

Just then, as I was telling Loke he leaned up against a wad of gum, a retro car, the type you'd find in 60's movies pulled up on the side of the street. Out stepped a woman, dressed so much differently than I usually seen her in. She flipped her chestnut brown, wavy hair and put her hands on her hips and grinned.

I gawked at Cana, taking in the polar opposite of what her Academy image is, which is a maxi-length, grey skirt with a dropping neckline of a polo. But this look seemed to match her personality completely; a dark, lacy bra with a little white sweater tied at the bottom, with low, brown jeans cuffed at the end with a small pink belt, and leather, heeled boots.

"What's up, Mr. and Mrs.?" Smirked Cana. "You guys are so flirtatious online, but in real life, _damn_ you guys are distant." She took a couple of steps towards Loke and I, and looked close at us. "I was expecting something a bit more exciting to 'accidentally' walk into. How disappointing.."

I scowled as Loke faked a bashful expression. "Oh dear!" He cried. "I'm so embarrassed... You found us out, Cana-sama! We were just about to go around the corner of the building and—" I interrupted him with a fist to his face.

Levy and the Strauss family pulled up to the side of the street all packed in one red van.

"Hello, party people!" Lisanna cheered as she exited, followed by Levy, who ran and hugged me, her (at least) 250 pounds of pure muscle brother, Elfman, and the famous onee-san-fujioshi character herself, Mirajane, exiting with care to not scuff her silver shoes, matching perfectly with her long, yellow dress.

"Awww, Cana," she said. "You changed. I wanted to see you like how you were in the picture."

"That was _waay_ too tight to dance in. I considered cutting away more fabric for less movement restriction, but my dad complained that either the police would catch me, or a 'scumbag would take away my precious, oh-so-cute daughter away from,' and I quote, ' _the best father in the world who's specialty is squashing scumbag's pervy faces in_.'" Cana slowly brought her hand to her face.

"I wanna meet your dad," said Levy.

"I think you already have," replied Cana in a rather exhausted tone. "Usually in from 9o'clock classes to 15:00, professor Gildarts.."

We stood in shocked silence just as Natsu's car pulled up, parked next to the others, distributing Gray, Erza, and the birthday boy.

"I guess that's everyone who wanted to come.." said Natsu.

I had to keep my jaw from dropping at the sight of boys my age with _stellar_ suits and ties, hands in pockets, hair combed, ect., since my face was already blushing pink. I was later to write down in my newly-purchased diary: _First of many Stupid-Teenage Moments._

"Damn, you guys clean up _nice_ ," said Cana. "Sorry, Lisanna, but I think pinky's mine now."

"'Pinky,'" sighed Natsu. "First insult of the age of twenty-one.."

"Like hell! Earlier I've called you Flam-"

"You don't count, Elsa," said Natsu, interrupting Gray.

"Well, I guess we should enter now?" Said Erza, breaking the two quarreling boys apart.

"Actually..." mumbled Levy , pointing to a newly parked car, which driver's door just opened. Out emerged the tall man with long, spiked black hair and piercings I knew from the club, exited, wearing a suit studded with metallic beads. He looked around, back facing us, for where we were.

"He's my plus one," she whispered to me before she waved and shouted, "Gajeel! We're over here!"

Gajeel whipped around and blushed in embarrassment at the sight of the tiny girl calling out to him.

Once Gajeel reached us, Cana begged for us to hurry it along, since we've just been "chit-chatting needlessly while our precious party-time is ticking away!" She led us to the back of the long alley, and opened a door I didn't notice was there, since it was painted to look like the dark, old bricks that made up the walls. _Sketchy_ , I thought, but we followed Cana anyway, down through a short hall, then through three flights of stairs.

"Uh..." said Erza, as she entered. "This is a nightclub..."

Indeed it was, though it was a small one, and almost empty at that. Couples scattered the place, sitting on various couches, making out, or talking. Others were dancing to the rather soft music. The bartender looked bored, not having many people to serve, and kept scrubbing spotless shot glasses. He looked like our age, maybe a bit older, and seemed to know Cana, since when his eyes found her, leading the group inside, they lit up like Christmas trees.

"Cana-chan!" He yelled across the club.

Cana grinned. "Bacchus! Whassup, my man!"

She ran over, and gave the man a friendly high-five.

"You brought your friends! Lemme guess—" He said, pointing at Natsu. "You're the birthday kid, Natsu. Cana-chan told be about you. She comes to this joint a lot, though I have no idea why. Ol' Quatro Cerberus lost its charm a while ago, but she still comes around, quite a lot, talks about you from time to time." The way Bacchus spoke was very particular. His tone was kind of sarcastic, and his voice was low, but squeaky. It reminded me of Cana herself, in fact.

"That's 'cause my dad knows about this place," replied Cana. "'Used to date a girl who dated a guy who knew the manager- long story. Anyways," she went on, sitting on a bar stool, and looking up into Bacchus's face. "You guys really know how to party, only if you have the right people... And the right _situation_."

He grinned. "Little miss Alberona, are you challenging me to a drinking competition? Again? We both know what happened last time."

Cana put on her best seductive face. "What? Too chicken? Or... how should I say? Too much like a.." She glanced at Elfman. "A puppy?"

Bacchus's eyebrow twitched. "Classic Cana-chan.. bringing up the failed experiences to waver an enemy." He slammed his hand on the bar and moved his face inches from Cana's. "You're on."

You may expect the rest of the group (or just Natsu) to say something during this intense conversation, but we were all just standing there in awe. There was an undeniable, strange atmosphere around the pair, making us all stay silent to try to figure out what it was.

Bacchus took various bottles and shot glasses, and brought them all to a small table in the center of a half-moon shaped array of tables with benches. On his way back to the bar, he clasped Natsu's shoulder. "Consider this show a present from me," he said with a pleasant smile.

"Who wants to bet this table was made for this duo's drinking contests?" Said Gray, finally.

Most of us only replied with dry laughter as we continued to stare at the set-up. Cana went off to a room to angle lights at the table and turn on music that she seemed to enjoy. Most of it was just rap and hardcore metal.

"Everyone listen up!" Announced Bacchus through a microphone. All of the guests looked toward him with excitement in their eyes. "You know what time it is. It's time for a Cana vs. Bacchus—"

"DRINKING CONTEST!" Shouted everyone in the club, making their way to the tables as quick as they could.

A huge, burly man placed himself on a stool right next to the centric table, and Bacchus shoved sheets of paper into his muscle-packed arms, along with the microphone, which gave off feedback.

The group and I stood around awkwardly, until Erza led us to a table, close to the "action." Turns out this was one of the most exciting things I have ever experienced, not only for the contest itself, but what you, my dear reader, will find to be interesting, after.

The burly man read aloud what was on the papers in a powerful, deep voice through the microphone, "First drink: three shots of the Fireball of Old."

Gajeel and Levy chuckled at the title. The rest stared intently at Cana and Bacchus downing each dink after another. Bacchus finished a drink before Cana had finished her last.

"Well, Alborona, I thought that you'd give it your all," grinned Bacchus.

"Please, my friend, if I've learned anything the three months I haven't seen you, it was to pace myself," she said, with just as much of a smirk.

Ten more of the "Deadly Blizzard," which seemed like a mixture of vodka, whiskey, and whatever disgusting mixtures they thrown in seemed to make Cana a bit red in the face, Bacchus redder, but they still were sitting straight up.

"Damn.. I can't even take _one_ drink of plain alcohol..." I mumbled.

They went on, both holding strong, the music and cheering pounding into my ears, the smell of sweat and certain beverages seeping in, and the all around atmosphere made me feel... exhilarated. In a good way— rather, in a really good way. I was here, with my friends, in a completely unknown place with suspicious characters surrounding us as we watched our comrade down certain liquid would make me feel uncomfortable usually, but instead I stood up and cheered after my friend like all the other crazy, drunken maniacs. Even though I haven't had a drop myself, the environment in the underground area made me like I was floating and excited.

The feeling left as quickly as it began, for both Bacchus and Cana took their last drink, and fell, straight to the polish, wooden floors, and the entire atmosphere took a dramatic change.

Elfman caught the girl in his arms, who quickly resisted.

"Leff—me go!" She shouted. "I've got more to doo.." she tried to stand, but wobbled back.

Bacchus, laying helplessly on the floor, stared at the girl with glazed eyes, but even as unfocused as they were, I could spot a glint of pity in them. "Gib it up, Cawa-chan, we're finsh..ed.." he murmured.

Cana balanced herself, and placed herself back on the table, snatched Gray's beer from him, and took a sip.

"I cawn still go..."

Levy took the beer from her as the announcer titled Cana as the winner. Erza stabilized her with the help of Mira, and me and Lisanna followed them to the bathroom.

Mira forcefully splashed water in Cana's face as Levy returned with a glass of fresh water. I stood awkwardly while Erza stroked the brunette head of the poor drunk.

"I have a feeling that this isn't a normal Friday binge... for her.." I said.

Levy and Lisanna turned to me with an understanding look. "It's not," said Lisanna.

Mira sighed. "I think you should hear it from Cana herself, only if she wants to talk about it."

Cana gripped the sides of the sink, letting the mirror reflect her angry, yet melancholy expression. "Lemme back out there," she said, her voice still wobbly, but stabler than it was before.

Ezra sighed. "I think Bacchus understands that you-"

"I SAID LET ME GO!" She yelled, her voice breaking. I saw in the mirror that tears were forming in her eyes.

Her knees buckled, causing Mira and Levy to run to her, catch her, and bring her to the nearest toilet for her to throw up in.

The entire room seemed to fill with an aura that was far from pleasant or fun.

Lisanna offered to tell the boys that there wasn't any real emergency, so she was the first to escape the awkward atmosphere of the bathroom.

I went to comfort Cana, who was now bundled in Erza's coat, sitting on a chair Levy got from the tables outside.

Cana frowned at the silence of the room. "C'mon... someone say something. I know that this situation's pretty bad, but you can talk, y'know.."

"Okay," I said, standing in front of her. "Can you tell me why you seem like you're breaking like a porcelain china doll?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Whadd'ya mean?"

I sighed. "You're acting really strange. The yelling, the distant stares before the match—"

"I get it. I was acting weird.. I'll tell you the whole story. I think I've told the others a while back.. sometime.. but now's the time for you."

Curious, I sat down on my coat on the floor.

"You know Macao Conbolt-sensei?"

I nodded. "The physics professor?"

"I took his classes since the high school years, and I would have never have gotten to the place I am without him. I went through a lot of stress before entering collage, moving in with my dad after he discovered who I was, situations concerning that after that.. I'd rather not talk about.." Tears welled up in Cana's brown eyes. "And Macao-sensei helped me. He talked to me, and gave me after-school tutoring when I really started to fall apart.. and... I fell in love with him."

My eyes grew wide as I saw Cana's face practically warp expressions.

"Not long after realizing my feelings, I confessed to him.. about two years ago from now, but he rejected me. Of course, that was the only practical response, since I'm a lot younger, have problems of my own- and him being my professor and all... but back then, I was a lot less stable. I went to the bar my dad always talks about, since him and I had always loved drinking, and became good friends with the bartender in a short time. I was still heartbroken, though, and turned to Bacchus, my only listening ear. He gave me a challenge to a drinking contest, which became sort of... monthly, around the bar. After a huge fight with Macao-sensei at school, since I have been avoiding him, and my grades dropped immensely, I immediately turned to Bacchus, and we began drinking. One thing led to another... I..."

She sniffed and took a drink of water. "I woke up the next morning at his house, and realized we... we did stuff.. Only weeks later I fell hard, head-over-heels for the guy. I think he knows, yet we both won't say anything, and the drinking contests never help me forget about the fact."

"And all this happened...?" I said.

"Three months ago, like I said. I haven't had a contest since then until now, and have been taking it easy..- but..-"

She started crying again, sobbing uncontrollably with tears staining Erza's coat.

"It all overflowed," I said, leaning forward to the girl to hug her. I didn't see a hyper-but-cool drunkard who never seemed to see the negative in life, but I saw just a girl, struck by love and a very difficult situation she has gotten in.

"Does he know about your feelings, like, officially?" I asked, retracting myself to face her.

Cana wiped her tears away with her sweater sleeve. "No..." she said with a sob. "But I bet he found out, 'cause-se I was so pathetic lately.."

I frowned and angled myself to face her. "You're not pathetic, Cana. When I look at you, I see the awesome party-girl who always seemed to be with me when the times get tough. There's no way in hell that Bacchus hasn't seen that part of you and doesn't love you for it. I've seen the way he looks at you, and there's a real big that you have hope for being with the one you love."

Cana looked up into my eyes and smiled. "Thanks, Lucy, but I think I've made up my mind..." she took a deep breath and looked back down. "I don't want to do a confession or some cheesy proclamation of love you read in manga or something... I don't want a fairy tale ending, and stuff... I actually.." She hugged her knees. "I don't want to even try to date him.. he-.. _I_ just want things to go back to the way they were. Even if he loves me back, I can't help but think that will change something. I fell in love with both him and the time we spent together every other week, and I want nothing more than what I fell in love with.."

I got up and, for some reason unknown to me, I chuckled. "I have no idea what love is, honestly.. I've been raised with hardly any from my one, depressed parent since I was nine, only having an emotionless replacement for my mother as a caretaker.. The only reference I have is fictional stories written by people who probably haven't experienced it themselves.. I say whatever your heart tells you to do," I kneeled down to Cana's level. "Than do that.. or whatever.."

All this emotional conversation made me forget of the audience of girls we seemed to have. All of the other members were tearing up or blowing their noses on paper hand towels, touched by the scene.

"I didn't now these things happened in real life," said Levy, wiping her eyes.

Erza, looking a bit shaky herself, which was obviously uncommon, said, "I'm glad you shared your feelings with us, Lucy and Cana. I bet the boys are worried about us, so we must get a move-on."

Mira held the door as we exited, as the boy's eyes widened at the sight of a red-faced, stuffy-nosed Cana finger-combing her hair out of embarrassment.

"Geez guys.. everybody has a break down once in a while, so quit staring.." Cana said, blushing at the boys.

"Yeah, but," said Natsu. "It's definitely not everyday you see _Cana_ have a breakdown.. I mean.. you're-" Gray elbowed him in the ribs to make him, "Shut up, dork." (And I quote)

Bacchus shot up from his seat behind the bar, and rushed over to confront Cana, who led him away behind the bar to talk.

"This was quite the hectic party," spoke up Lisanna while Cana conversed with Bacchus. "Who wants to chill at Natsu's for a bit, and start over?"

I glanced at the pair talking, and felt it best if we all left them alone.

I trotted over when the time felt natural, and tapped on Cana's shoulder.

"I hate to interrupt, but the rest of us are going to Natsu's place. If you wanna come after-"

"Sure, Lucy," she said with a cheerful grin. "I'll head out in just a moment."

I awkwardly smiled and nodded to Bacchus, to say goodbye, and returned to the group.

"Shall we?" I said, gesturing to the group.

Levy grabbed my hands and Natsu cheered, "Let the party go on!"

 **DEFINITELY To Be Continued**


End file.
